EPT[G] An aggressive path in ZvP - Page 2
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Xanbatou
United States805 Posts
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Moja
United States313 Posts
Maybe zergs will stop complaining that they lose when they have nothing but 60 drones and 2 zerglings... -_- | ||
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Evilruler
Brazil116 Posts
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Christmastaflex
United States35 Posts
You are still just as capable to pressure, and if you are planning on not droning at your natural then you should be safe against early foolery anyways, also leaving you more capable of transitioning. Just my opinion. BTW 95 billion Grand Masters Zerg Korean Ladder just for reference so makes the solidity of my statement THAT MUCH MORE | ||
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vol_
Australia1608 Posts
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Pwere
Canada1556 Posts
I like this build so far, even if it feels pretty all-in (mostly due to the lack of upgrades). I guess if you went 4 bases, a followup could be double evo chambers, broodlords/(queens)/ling/infestors, now that infestors destroy blink stalkers before they can deal with the broodlords. | ||
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logikly
United States329 Posts
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Douillos
France3195 Posts
Will try! Also, I think traditionnal muta ling is also really back in the game because of the amulet being thrown out... | ||
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drinking
Philippines281 Posts
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Xapti
Canada2473 Posts
I also don't exactly understand what's so new or special about this build— wasn't ling into hydra-ling a common build back in the beta and retail? | ||
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P00RKID
United States424 Posts
On March 24 2011 17:31 Xapti wrote: I don't see how this build deals with heavy sentry use. It can split hydras up as well as if necessary protect from zergling surrounds. I also don't exactly understand what's so new or special about this build— wasn't ling into hydra-ling a common build back in the beta and retail? It is a metagame type build. Protoss want to turtle and get a death ball, and zergs want to macro and make units at the last moment. With this strategy, the zerg instead tries to army trade at a few key timings keep protoss away from their deathball. I still think this is a risky strategy for Z as the P player could play standard 3gate FE scout with hallucination, and have time to put down cannons or have started on their colossus tech. The replays in the op are somewhat non standard P plays, like fake 4gate into FE, or fake FE into 4gate, or sentry zealot stalker + halucination push, or 2gate stargate pressure, or 3gate FE stargate with low sentries. So I sort of agree with Xapti as a very standard protoss player will have sometimes 8-11 sentries and will reduce the amount of damage the hydra do by a lot, to the point that they can hold the mutalisks, and then be in the lead. | ||
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Grendel
Belgium126 Posts
I've been tinkering with some variations as well. Try to do a speedling/roach attack, but way sooner then a protoss expects it to be. Usually, i have only 1 gas mining, and 7-8 drones on my expo, and then i attack the toss if he does a 3 gate expand. In almost all cases you can do a whole lot of damage, or just outright kill him with reinforcements  | ||
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Macpo
453 Posts
Let me answer some of the questions, critiques first, possibilities of improvement second: CRITIQUES: 1. about the all-inish aspect of the build: I want to say two things. First, yes, certain variations of the build are quite all-inish (depending on your drone count), but I guess this is the cost of an ultra aggressive variation of the build. More generally, in any attack you have to take risks at some point, and it would be an illusion, imho, to think you can always "poke and go" and have absolutely everything under control. Some players can try to do it this way with reasonable success, but I don't like it like that... Second, I think one interesting aspect of this build is its flexibility, i.e. you can go for much macro oriented versions of it (for instance, skipping the inital zergling harassment, and just mass droning). And if you take the more macro-oriented variation, I am not sure it is so all-inish (in my experience you can easily take 1 or 2 bases when pushing, if you droned hard before). One thing to be worked upon is definitely: when should I go all inish/ when should I be more macro oriented? I have to say I don't have any answer yet to that. 2. About the non standard aspect of the protoss 3 gate expand play in the replays I gave : I have to say I wasn't conscious of that. I'll be a bit more careful about it, maybe the toss holds the push better when he plays standard. More generally, it is clear that a defensive protoss is hard to deal with. What happens sometimes (especially when I play against top master players, (in tournaments for instance) is that the guy just throw down really good forcefields and delay my push for 30 seconds, and I feel there is nothing I can do... But to be honest, this doesn't happen that much either, maybe because "non standard" play is more frequent than standard one. Yet, maybe one thing to consider is not to go for this build if you see a really defensive toss at around the 7,30 / 8th minut (lots of sentries, cannons, etc), or better, going for slightly modified versions of the strat (see down in the post). The point with sentries is that 1. hydras with range deal pretty well with sentries (as opposed to roaches). 2. hydras+zerglings require two contradictory uses of forcefields (close to toss units, or splitting zerg units). Then, it is true that nice forcefields make things harder for zerg. I am working on micro during the hydra push, to improve things, from the zerg point of view. 3. what is truly new with this strat: the muta transitioning. The timing is good (just after the hydra push); unit composition is interesting at that moment (avoiding colossi), etc. Also the preparation of this 3rd wave has a retroactive effect on the whole build order, especially on the way you prepare for the hydra push: especially, it implies that you take 4 gas, instead of a 2 gas hydra push that some may do here and there. POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS: 3. the incorporation of an extra queen would be really interesting, mainly for creep tumors to the toss base. Definitely have to check this, I don't think the build would suffer from it. It would also make the strat less all-inish, as the zerg could retreat easily. Another possibility would be overlord speed to spread creep (that would combine better with the possibility of drops). 5. about adding drop... this is something I didn't think of, but that can be really interesting in certain situations. I am just a bit afraid of wether this is economically possible... But it would definitely solve sentries and cannon issues, so I am definitely going to check this! Maybe one possibility is: go poke at his natural at the 8th minut mark; if you see to much defense (and you have to know what is much defense!), go for drop techs and do a drop push! That would be lovely. and it gives even more adpatability to the build. 6. The latest theorycrafting I wanted to share: in the case where you go for the more macro oriented variation; I think it may be very interesting to transition not to mutas but to banelings, after the hydra push, in case you didn't do sufficient damage (regarding stalkers), but killed sentries. I think you could make a big big baneling push (as you can have something like 2000 minerals and 1000 gas after your hydra push), to clear the whole natural, units and workers. The only thing you would have to do is adding a baneling nest when you put down a spire, and then you just make your choice which way you go later. But that's just theory crafting. 7. When i suspect a four gate push, I always defend zerglings /roaches/ possibly spines. But this is just me, banelings may well be a solution too! (I just had in mind that baneling were not cost effective in ZvP, especially against small groups of units, but I think I have to change my mind about this). Sorry if I missed some kind of question! | ||
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Gigaudas
Sweden1213 Posts
Hydra pushes are risky as hydras are too slow to retreat. Protoss players try to push in situations where they can retreat as often as possible but playing Hydras you can pretty much never retreat. That's a huge deal that will surely decide a lot of games when using this strategy. Hallucination is, imo, the best scout in this game. Overlords pretty much always gets killed when scouting out the enemies base and they cost 100 minerals. Hallucinated Phoenixes cost 100 energy and move much, much faster. It is very likely that the Hydra aggression and the Mutalisks are both scouted in which case you have been cutting drones in an attempt to be aggressive that is likely to fail. | ||
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Ziktomini
United Kingdom377 Posts
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Umpteen
United Kingdom1570 Posts
It's very encouraging to see a strategy that has a chance to work as a general principle rather than some kind of ten-second rush window. | ||
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Demonace34
United States2493 Posts
I actually think using that lair tech for speed roach with burrow (get tunneling claws while you move out) and getting another queen for AA might allow you to still retreat and allow you the ability to get rid of a ton of forcefields early. If they go for Stargate and skip the observer by using Hallucination instead you may kill them outright. Just going to throw some math in here, only replacing the slow hydras off creep to upgraded roaches. Roaches cost 75/25 +Faster off creep +Shorter build time +Armored with more Hp -4 Range Hydras cost 100/50 +Shoots at air +5 range (especially with upgrade) +More DPS -Slow off creep -Expensive -Lower HP and Light Cost between 15 roaches and 15 hydras: Roaches: 1125/375 (+150 minerals for Roach Warren) Hydras: 1500/750 (+100/100 for Hydra Den) Critical Upgrades When going roach instead of hydra, forcefields are going to be your worst enemy, especially as the roach number rises. The 475 gas that we save from hydras can go toward a faster Spire tech or critical roach upgrades for a stronger push with roach ling. If you go for all roach upgrades it would take 350/350 to get burrow, burrow movement and roach speed and 3:40 game time to finish roach speed and burrow movement back to back. I'm not trying to hurt the OP, but I think this would be a different strategy to look into to negate early forcefields and be more safe off creep. Of course this is all thoerycrafting, but strategy has to start somewhere. I would also like to hear peoples thoughts on the differences between hydras and roaches for this push. | ||
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Macpo
453 Posts
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Hairy
United Kingdom1169 Posts
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M3grim
United States6 Posts
On March 24 2011 21:39 Demonace34 wrote: Roaches cost 75/25 +Faster off creep +Shorter build time +Armored with more Hp -4 Range Hydras cost 100/50 +Shoots at air +5 range (especially with upgrade) +More DPS -Slow off creep -Expensive -Lower HP and Light The "armoured" classification for roaches is definitely a negative in this situation, not a positive. Stalkers do extremely well against roaches in a straight up fight, let alone an encounter involving force fields. And even though roaches are a bit cheaper than stalkers, the added damage and micro-ability makes up for that cost discrepancy. Plus, despite the larger health pool, a hydra and a stalker fighting one another will die at almost the exact same time whereas a roach will die to a stalker with a few seconds to spare. All of that, however, can seem a bit too situational for some people (i.e. roaches would do better against more zealots, attacking sooner would mean they'd have a smaller army, etc). In my eyes, the main reason not to go roaches is because of Protoss' natural response to roaches. Even if you manage to hide your warren from early scouts, as soon as they see roaches, they're quite likely to pop up an immortal (or not, whatever; any money going into that robo is just icing on the cake for this build as nothing it can make should phase you when prepping that 3rd wave), debate getting stargate units, and, most importantly, pump out even more stalkers and start thinking about blink. Assuming you're still planning on cleaning up with mutas after the 2nd wave, forcing blink stalkers is just about the worst decision you could make aside from shoving a rabid ferret down your pants. Now one could make the argument that the 3rd wave of attack doesn't necessarily have to be mutas (perhaps a big ling/bane/roach attack with speed on all 3, infestors to deal with the larger stalker numbers, etc) but if you're planning on changing two of the three defining characteristics to this build... well, it's no longer this build. I'm not saying there isn't validity to some of those ideas, just that we should try to find ways around issues with this build simply by tweaking rather than overhauling. Macpo, do you have any replays of this build on any of the larger 4 player maps (Shattered Temple, Tal'darim Altar, etc)? I'm wondering how the timings will be affected by the longer travel time for those hydras as well as construction time for the creep highway. | ||
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