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Hey TL,
I come to you guys wondering what all you zergs do for timing your roach warren. I personally like to get my roach warren right when I get my lair. However, I don't know if this is too late or not. I go the standard speedling expand takedrones off gas till second queen comes out and then lair with next 100 gas.
Does anyone think this is too late of a roach warren? Are there any good pushes (besides 4 gate) that will punish this? When do you guys get your warren?
Low diamond zerg btw.
I'm looking for responses relative to a long term macro game. I'm also aware that you should throw down a warren as soon as you scout 4 gate.
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There is no hard rule for when to get the roach warren - obviously if you're attempting some sort of aggressive opening or timing push, you should get your warren earlier as opposed to later. However, if you're playing a macro game and just want to drone up and establish a strong economy, you may not get a roach warren until after lair tech (although you may have to get one earlier if you scout a 4 gate or other aggressive enemy build).
Bottom line is, scout and play it by ear. There is no specific timing for getting the roach warren unless you've committed to doing a roach rush/timing push, in which case you get it about a minute before you want to start pumping roaches.
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Here are my timing
14 extractor
13 pool
back to back queens
100 gas ling speed pull drones
20 Expand
25 supply drones back on gas
next 100 gas lair followed by second extractor
when lair is 1/3 done roach warren
Once lair and roach warren finish I get burrow and roach speed
Of coarse this BO is only if toss is doing a fast expand build like the 3 gate expand. If I scout 4 gate ill throw down a roach warren immediately and stop drone production at 22 drones and pump roachs until im out of gas then I spend the rest of my money on lings and a couple of spines. If toss fakes pressure and expands go kill him
heres a replay of me vs a master protoss using this build.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/149128-1v1-protoss-zerg-metalopolis
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If they do a 3 gate sentry expand, you sometimes need to get your roach warren before lair to hold off the potential zealot sentry push. Pure speedlings get wrecked by zealot/sentry, so you need some roaches to not die to that push and getting your roach warren after lair is too late sometimes.
Otherwise, getting it 10-15 seconds after lair starts is a good time because the roach warren and lair will finish at the same time and you can get roach speed right away, if you so choose.
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I generally find that a roach warren when lair just starts, finishes just in time for that 3 gate sentry zealot (sometimes a couple stalkers) push. However the players I'm playing may not be the best. Also I like to get 5 or so roaches right when my warren finishes to help destroy rocks. Such as on xel naga or shattered temple. Usually by the time the rocks get down i've saturated 2 base ready to get my third and start pumping hard roaches till my third gets up then pump drones till my 3rd is saturated. Anything wrong with that? The reason I want to know is because I'm playing increasingly skilled players and I don't want to all the sudden hit a wall.
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If I'm playing more standard, I usually get my Roach Warren after I start my Lair. If I think he's going for some early push, then I might drop it down earlier.
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Against P I always like the option to do the 7RR so i do typically do a 15/14 pool with gas immediately after. I drone up until my queen is finished and when my queen is 75% done i drop Roach warren, which times normal larva spawn + inject perfectly so you can make 7 Roaches as soon as larva+warren pop. After Roaches I take 2nd gas, lair and expand behind it.
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The toss should never be allowed to 3gate expand and do the sentry-zealot push. If you have a decent # of speedlings then you should always be in his face with them. If he does move out then you trash whatever you can and run. He is going to have to leave something at his base, inevitably weaking his overall push. This also buys you time, because after the round of speedlings you made you've been pumping drones/getting gas and should be able to start pumping roaches. Creep spread is also very important.
I think your roach warren timing is pretty solid. You just have to have map control, otherwise you need to get it before lair.(or spines&extra queens)
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If I scout 4gate, asap. Otherwise i delay it quite a bit to get moar drones.
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I get it after I get hydras.
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get it so its ready in case of a slow 4gate. You dont need to actually make roaches, just for the choice.
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Well, if you think they're 4-gating you, build it immediately. If they're not (3 gate expand) I'll go for my roach warren when the lair is about 1/3 done morphing. The timing syncs up nicely so you can start roach speed right when your lair pops.
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I would say you should get a roach warren the moment you see a sentry built by toss. Roaches are the only early game unit that can fight a sentry based army (if he is good with force fields), when he comes and attacks. And Roaches are the only unit that can stop an early expand (or at least slow it down). Make the toss invest in cannons to expand, otherwise kill his sentries with some roaches (the roaches will die but sentries are worth more).
Also sentries are so gas heavy, that it means a much slower voidray/immortal, which are really the only counters to roaches. He might just get 1 sentry and tech up, but if he is getting sentries he probably is getting more then 1 (3 gate expand after warpgate is the most common when starting with a sentry).
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On March 12 2011 08:41 Fallen621 wrote:
The toss should never be allowed to 3gate expand and do the sentry-zealot push. If you have a decent # of speedlings then you should always be in his face with them. If he does move out then you trash whatever you can and run. He is going to have to leave something at his base, inevitably weaking his overall push. This also buys you time, because after the round of speedlings you made you've been pumping drones/getting gas and should be able to start pumping roaches. Creep spread is also very important.
I think your roach warren timing is pretty solid. You just have to have map control, otherwise you need to get it before lair.(or spines&extra queens)
Sorry if I did not clarify but I'm looking for long term macro games. No way are you going to get enough lings out to hold an early 3 gate sentry/zealot push. This is assuming you are trying to make only 4 zerglings and the rest drones until you are under pressure. Making too many lings vs 3 gate expand is suicide in the long run.
On March 12 2011 09:46 obsid wrote:
I would say you should get a roach warren the moment you see a sentry built by toss. Roaches are the only early game unit that can fight a sentry based army (if he is good with force fields), when he comes and attacks. And Roaches are the only unit that can stop an early expand (or at least slow it down). Make the toss invest in cannons to expand, otherwise kill his sentries with some roaches (the roaches will die but sentries are worth more).
Also sentries are so gas heavy, that it means a much slower voidray/immortal, which are really the only counters to roaches. He might just get 1 sentry and tech up, but if he is getting sentries he probably is getting more then 1 (3 gate expand after warpgate is the most common when starting with a sentry).
I really don't think its a good habit to throw a roach warren in response to seeing a single sentry. If you are planning on making roaches that early (which you would because other wise you would NEVER get a warren that fast unless 4 gate is coming) then I'm pretty sure that you would be very very low on drones and going all-in. I'm not looking for all-in builds, only macro style.
On March 12 2011 09:22 FabledIntegral wrote:
I get it after I get hydras.
That is WAY too late.
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It all depends on what they are originally planning and what they scout.
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My timings:
-against sentry expand: after I have started zergling speed and have 2 queens (just in case he decides to pressure me before my lair is done)
-against any 1 base play: the moment I know he's doing 1 base play
-anything else: when the lair is at 25/80 (so that I can start roach speed as soon as the lair is finished)
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I always get my roach at 29-30 supply so im sure that i'm safe against a 4 gate and i always do a timing push against a 3 gate expand ( work very well actually)
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If you wanted a blind time to get an optimal roach warren under macro conditions then lets consider the mining dynamic.
-up to 16 drones on minerals you get 100% efficiency.
-the 17th to 24th drone only gets about 30% mining efficiency
-any more than 3 drones on minerals or gas get 0% efficiency
-therefore the most basic and optimal 1 base saturation would be 19 drones (16 minerals + 3 on gas)
So if you wanted to rush to saturation and then get your warren a good time would be to drone to 20 to saturate your 1 base (with queen), and drop the RW on the 20th. That late RW will be hard to scout by the enemy, but not so late to leave you without units. As the roach warren builds you add 2 more drones to achieve saturation (or 3 drones if you have 2 lings in play) you now have 16 drones on minerals + 3 on gas + 1 queen + lings.
Now you hit a juncture that you must decide which way you want to go..
1. Stop drones and just produce units for a 1 base offensive (with an expo behind it). Ling speed is researching and excess minerals can be dumped into speedlings as you'll be short on gas with 1 extractor.
2. Make more drones for your 1 base and over saturate/over drone your main because 17 to 24 are only 30% efficient. If you go for over saturation before an offensive then you're setting yourself up for an inferior economy with inadequate offensive unit density and an off timing window that will cause your aggression to bite it. On the other hand you might intend to be transferring these to a pending expansion but you have to anticipate that the enemy has very near the same mining efficiencies that are dictating timing attacks along the 1 base and 2 base lines too, so right now if he has anywhere near an optimal build and he is sitting on 1 base, then he is likely pumping units out like mad. Are these extra drones going to help the situation? And have you scouted out the situation to know that an overdrone is safe? (as a diamond I'm sure you have).
3. Make minimal defenses/units for defense of expansion and set an immediate goal to establish and saturate your 2nd with an eventual 32 on minerals and at least 3 extractors. Your scouting will dictate if you must produce units or can drone vs tech/expansion. If you go for the expansion, getting 8 drones mining on the expo and then maynarding +4 drones will get you a 12/12 split, from there you can add 2 queens and adapt to the situation. Just being on 24 (12/12) drones on 2 base vs anything he might have on 1 base is enough to eek out an advantage, so you can optionally start pumping units and teching here for a timing attack, until he takes an expo. At that point adding a macro hatch and with a single injection round you can jump to 16/16 and keep slightly ahead.
The same kind of mining dynamics apply to the 2 base situation, if you go for more than 32 drones on the minerals then you're setting yourself up for a less than efficient over drone situation, and walking under prepared into a timing attack.
As any more drones than 32 are less than efficient (unless sent to gas), you need to immediately start looking at how to secure and saturate your 3rd. As the 3rd goes down, you might consider temporarily overdroning with 2 rounds of injections to give you +8 on each base (24/24), which you can then transfer to your 3rd as soon as it comes up, (for 16/16/16). Of course the most important thing at this point is probably the gas and your unit compositions should concentrate on maximizing the use of available gas.
Whether you are actually making roaches and ling and muta, fighting or whatever while all this is going on is not important, I'm just saying these would be the optimal mineral saturations for each base as you expand and progress and that timing your unit production, expansion, tech and facilities between these saturation points would most likely align you 'blindly' to optimal offensive timings, while at the same time provide leaps in military power that would naturally exploit sub-optimal enemy timings that have over or under droned.
From this perspective it makes your strategy kind of easy, if they over drone, then you mass units at one of these optimal saturation junctures and go all in. If they under drone, due to early military investment, then you hold and counter them with your superior economy. Slotting the Roach warren in at 20 plays in with this thinking.
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EPT
