An aggressive path in ZvP (how I stopped seeing pink toss deathballs in my dreams...)
"Great post! Finally a zerg is thinking outside the box." Terminator
"Dude, THANK YOU, this is sooo sexy..." Evilruler
"This is a great strategy, and also a great start for ZvP. Zerg finally goes back into the aggressive harassment mode it's been known for, instead of dronedrone." Tracedragon
"But the last reason I love this is very simple: it looks fun. At the end of the day, its a game. If we don't enjoy it, why play? Hanging on for dear life, frantically macroing in fear...that doesn't sound that fun. maybe once in a while, but not all the time. But you know what does sound fun? Whipping up an army in the first 10 minutes that can go kick your opponent's ass. This does that." awesomoecalypse
"I love mutas and have been looking for a way to incorporate them into my ZvP with no luck but this looks interesting, I'lll definately give it a go" vol_
"I have been using this and while im a plat zerg, i have been beating master protoss:" DanLegend
"Good post, well written post!" Grendel
"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." Umpteen "big up mapco for sharing this!" enykie
"Macpo, this is awesome. I played around with it a bunch yesterday, first against the AI to get used to the build and then vs a practice partner to see how well I could pull it off against a real opponent. I went 2-2 against him with this build. I tried it 4 times straight, just to give it a shot, without caring what build my practice buddy was using. I even told him I was going to use this build every time, and he still lost to it twice(he thought I was joking about doing this a bunch). He said 15+ hydras and lings were a real shock because other zergs just don't do this kind of thing." ZombiesOMG
"tryed your Strat in a game on Xelnaga and it worked wonders!" Tumor
"just watched some of the replays, it seems to me that the transition from a hydra force to trade out some of his ground army into a quick muta follow up is really good." DoT_TL
"thank you man nice strategy!" Bleez
"Who's awesome? OP's awesome." tGhOeOoDry
"just want to say I showed this thread to some of my Zerg friends who've tried it out against me in practice, and its quite, quite nasty." awesomoecalypse
"today i got a protoss in a ladder session and i tried this strategy out the first time and i rly have to say that after playing it, it feels pretty damn nice" eliquo
"I like the idea behind this, like "if your opponent is doing or might be doing something you can't deal with, just kill him before he does it"." fenX
This is a two part thread, one about the disease, the other one about the cure. For the BO, go directly part 2. It basically consists in several pushes at key timings, with zerglings, hydras and mutas from a 2 base structure.
The syndrom of macro zerg.
Dear fellow zergs,
A long long time ago, in a far far away galaxy, zergs were highly addicted to macro. Smokers will tell you: it's really hard to quit. It requires will, substitutes, you will go through rage and anger. And yet, having stopped in itself does not bring so much tangible reward in the short term. It is only way later, when you watch the distant past from the present harmony that you realize how lost you were.
So is it for macro zerg: We have so long been addicted to drones, creep spread and larva injections. We can't give it up like that.
Yet, I want to give it a try. And first, to counterbalance such difficulties, I will give you something. Not much, perhaps almost nothing for someone addicted. Not even an idea: we are just going to start with a question you should ask yourself.
If you say yes to two of the three questions, time has come for treatment.
The real problem of ZvP.
We all know that there is some kind of problem in Zerg vs Protoss, as our dear friend Mr Bitter reminded us recently. Countless solutions have been suggested to deal with the colossus void ray death ball. I can remember of : mass ccorruptors, mass mutas, mass queens+ultralisks, more recently ultralisks and banelings, or strategies revolving around fungal growth. Latest but not least "multi pronged attacks". To be coming soon: multi-pronged massive pushes of creep tumors with 2/2 upgrades, with massive evolution chamber broodlings and massive self funged muta megadrops.
Won't you agree with me that all these strategies share the same symptoms? Don't they all have the same taste? (impossible to realise for the low APM retarded player that we all feel to be, requiring insane macro management on four bases, and so on? What is the name for that?
Yes! you got it: MACRO. We are all victims of the now infamous macro zerg syndrom. Let's change our metagame habits, and start thinking about aggression.
II. How I stopped seeing pink toss deathballs in my dreams.
"Wait, so let me try to get this straight, this is... Speedlings to force him to stay in his base, then a wave of Hydralisks followed up by a shit ton of Mutalisks?" branflakes14
I have been looking for aggressive (non all-in) strats vs protoss for a long long time… I got demoted to diamond for that (by now back in masters though. I have been working on countless timings and unit compositions, got isolated, humiliated, lonely in my love for fight.
And yet, as the explorers of the Ancient times, after years of pain and frustration, I found a way to cure ourselves from the macro zerg syndrom (tatam). It is all about being aggressive. I will talk here about fast expanding protosses, which are the core the protoss play. By that I mean, forge expand and three gate sentries expand. I will take three gate expand as the ideal situation, as forge FE doesn't require much adaptation, beyond common sense things.
The plan is simple. It's neither macro, nor cheesy. It consists in several nicely coordinated pushes at key timings, from a two base structure. Your hope is that your opponent will end up losing to one of your three main waves of attack (ZHM): zergling harassment from 6 to 8 min; Hydra push between 10 and 11 min; followed by mutas, one spire later . Elements of this may be well known to some players, but not the combination of all. Although it requires a bit of practice to become efficient, it requires no high APM whatsoever (although better mechanics will definitely help), and is quite flexible in several aspects. You can definitely have decent ZvP rate of win (mine being around 60-65% since my discovery, in Master league, as compared to 40% before).
EDIT: It has become quite clear that an hydra drop is significantly better than a classical hydra push (avoiding forcefields, static defense, having good unit positioning around the choke, etc). So I would recommend switching from hydras to hydra drop for this second wave. Since then, my win ratio has risen to 69%! in ZvP (and this includes crappy games where I do other strats, where I stupidely forget stuff, custom games against much higher players, etc).
The frame is a very classical speedling into expand, as follows. 14 gas, 14 pool @100% pool, queen and speed + remove 2 drones from gas. make 2 sets of zerlings. 21/22 expand, followed by a second queen. drones until 26 food. Don't forget ovies.
b. first decisions and variations: waiting for the expand.
First, make sure you are in the expected situation, i.e. that the toss is not 4 gating or 1 base delayed pushing. It's pretty easy to scout for a 4 gate. To scout for a three gate expand (from the 6th mn), the main signs are: not much cybernetic core chronoboost, some sentries.
When you are waiting for the expand, there are three possibilities: 1. early expand: you don't need to make zerglings, but you can do it, to put pressure (it'll bring you to the most aggressive variations of the build). 2. late expand: you shall make zerglings until you clearly see the expand. 3. no expand: after some point waiting for an expand that is not coming, go for lair tech, make hydras anyway and wait for a 1 base delayed push. Things should be fine.
Generally you will have some lings.
THE FIRST WAVE is ready to hit. This wave is a small wave, just to put pressure. War starts not in a roar but in a whisper.
just harass with zerglings while going to step II, to delay his expand, kill some sentries if possible, whatever you can do. But don't loose your zerglings please… because they will be very helpful later.
(Generally speaking, when waiting for the expand, remember that you can delay a bit your builds, for instance by building overlords until 52 or 60 food, before making units or drones, etc. so that you can choose with enough information.)
II. The Swarm strikes back (with Hydras).
EDIT: here again, I would recommend switching from hydras to hydra drop, i.e. getting drop and speed techs for overlords... you will have a couple of units less, but they will be much more efficient.
When you see the expand you have two bases with two queens, you are at around 20/21 drones, have a bunch of zerglings, and one guy mining gas, From this point until the 11 mn hydra push, precise BO recommendations don't make sense.
Just: - go to lair (you should have enough gas, with the drone left), - get your FOUR gases. There are some hydra push with only two gases, but as you want to get a spire, you'd better get four. Not necessarily at once. I would recommend to put back 3 guys in gas, build one other gas, make a round of drones, and build two other gases. But don't take your gases too late. Gas timing is important as (with number of initial zerlings) it will make your build more or less aggressive, more or less ground or air-based. - get drones.: In the most aggressive variations you can just make around 12 drones more (i.e. one round and a half on two bases with larva injections). The most macro oriented variations will bring you to around 50 drones(that will bring you to 4 bases plans).
b. prepare for fight! you little lazy coward macro zerg!
- After your lair has finished, go for hydra den. produce some hydras and zerglings. (all these steps may well overlap! that's no big deal).
The interest of hydras is that they will counter air attacks + deal reasonably well with sentries (as opposed to roaches). The timing of hydra range will depend on the amount of pressure the toss puts on you, as you may want to have some hydras quicker, instead of range. But it is necessary to have it for the push.If possible hide your hydra den with overlord creep; and your hydras too. Spread creep for hydras' speed. (possibly use some overlords to create a path to the opponent's base).
During this period, you may face some attacks from the protoss or more likely "pressure" (as early gate pressure or starport pressure); most of them will be done easily thanks to hydras. Things to have in mind: a void ray is really good news, as you will smash it with hydras and counter easily. Phoenixes are more difficult to deal with. as they will pick up hydras one by one. yet, against air pressure, you will have a strong advantage if you push in his natural. Against early gateway units pressure, don't let them leave for free if you can smash them, while they are "pretending to attack".
THE SECOND WAVE IS READY. I guess a good number is around 12/15 hydras and 30/50 zerglings around 10th minut. Make the hydras go first, and pump lings to join them on the road to your opponent natural. You should be in his base at around 10:30/11. Later you would meet colossi.
Don't mess up your second attack. This one is not harassment, you are going to inflict serious damage. The difficulty is to deal correctly with forcefields, so that you don't get completely blocked off for 15 or 30 secs. Generally this is not the case, because of hydras range. Some advice: avoid narrow roads, small chokes (higher positions in metalopolis for instance; scrap station small road, shakuras plateaux). Destroy units first, not buildings, and don't let them retreat in the back of their base. There is yet a key building to target, if you can: the cybernetic core, to prepare the following wave.
Sometimes you will win at this stage. Yet, the objective is not that high. The objective is the following: if at the end of the push, the protoss player has no more stalkers (for instance if the fight ends up in a draw), you are more than fine, because mutas are coming.
(You may want to make a round of drones just after your second wave . That's up to you! if you want to be aggressive or not.)
III. The return of the Jedi. (or why our dear old Mutas still rock in zvp).
When you leave your base with hydras for the second wave, you shall build a spire. When the spire is finished, just make as much mutas as you can.
These mutas should really be arriving a couple of seconds after your 2nd wave has ended. The number of mutas you make will depend on your gas timings earlier, but to give an idea, it should be between 8 and 15. In my opinion, this is very efficient. Become protoss for a second. You hold with difficulty some push, you don’t have much left, but the zerg apparently lost most of his army too; your colossi went out, you still have two bases mining. And yet, you see 12 mutas in your mineral line, against which colossi are completely useless.
I have experienced many psychological reactions here: rage quit complains about zerg is OP and so on… But not always, so stay focused.
Basically, there are two ways.
You have been very aggressive from the beginning, and you don't have much money to do anything but building mutas (you play with 30/35 drones, 12 of which are in gas). Then, just constantly reproduce mutas and harass until victory, that works pretty well.
If you took the more macro-oriented strat, you can probably take one or two expands (don't hesitate to take two!). Actually, you have to do it to pump lings, or otherwise you minerals will just pile up, cause muta/lings is larva intensive…
Generally speaking it's a bit better to have long distance positions. it'll avoid the protoss to be too pushy between your waves. One mistake I did in the beginning for instance was to break rocks in scrap station with hydras, which opened the way for good counters from the toss, and weaken my muta harass. Things are significantly more difficult with narrow chokes (for instance in Shakuras plateaux), but this is not a problem anymore, as anyone knows.
General remarks.
What makes this strat worth a try?
1. you can adapt to nearly every protoss strat without too much difficulty. 2. good timings 3. efficient transitioning (from hydras to mutas, hitting the protoss in two very different ways (in the front// in the back ; air units vs ground units ). 4. Potentially, many possible variations, depending on your gas timings, number of early zerglings, number of drones rounds before and after the hydra push. 5. No roaches, no corruptors, no death ball to deal with… Isn't that freedom?
Since my remission, I have not seen any colossus void ray ball AT ALL. Not one in around 50 zvps; and I have the initiative in all my games, not just waiting to get killed!
REPLAYS: (I give only my wins, keeping my losses away from public spaces where protosses could be watching us).
good plan. a 15 in base hatch + 14 pool 15/16 gas would let you drone up to ~24 faster and will give your ling play more punch. actually in the 2 replays i watched, there was no real ling harrass. you can get your nat ~24..26 supply even when having in-base hatched.
On March 23 2011 08:29 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: good plan. a 15 in base hatch + 14 pool 15/16 gas would let you drone up to ~24 faster and will give your ling play more punch. actually in the 2 replays i watched, there was no real ling harrass. you can get your nat ~24..26 supply even when having in-base hatched.
But in-base hatch is a pretty transparent signal of early aggression, and having to build another hatch that early is going to also significantly slow down the build.
Sounds really good. I really like anything involving hydras. Too many zergs are afraid to make hydras because they die to colossi, but if you use them to hit a timing before they their colossi, it can work. Also I think the combination of hydras and lings works out really nicely, because while forcefields can stop pure hydra or pure ling, each requires a different kind of forcefield usage (block off his own army from lings, split apart hydras), and sentries only have limited energy. Compared to roach+hydra where a few forcefields isolating the front roaches does the trick, sentries have a much harder time dealing with hydra+ling.
This looks awesome! I hate the way I play, praying to fend off anything the protoss wants to throw at me while I try to get to 4-5 bases to overwhelm him. It's gonna feel great having an actual 3-phase battle plan.
Some noob questions, I'm only plat.
In some of the replays you drop a roach warren. What did you see/didn't you see that caused you to do so? I'm still unsure on what to look for if my opponent is 4-gating.
In your losses, what did you need to do differently/better? What did you fail to do?
Again, thanks for an entertaining post and all the replays!
1. a 15 in base hatch seems quite difficult to do for this build, as you need four gases to do it... in addition to that, I guess that when in base hatch, you should always wonder, why not fe?
2. about deciding between roaches and hydras: I definitely think hydras is always the best choice, as they deal better against air units + deal better with forcefields. I have tried 11 mn pushes with roaches for a long long time (with speed, burrow, burrow move, +1/+1 upgrades), but it's really too difficult to do, even if you win sometimes. Hydras make things much easier, as they are less affected by forcefields (because of their range). As hydras are a decent counter to almost everything (before colossi come), they also enable you not to rely on scouting (which is most of the time difficult in zvp).
3. about targeting sentries rather than stalkers during the second, main push with hydras: I completely agree! I just wanted to say that not letting stalkers go is quite important too. Too often, when I was pushing, if the toss was retreating in the middle of his base, behind his buildings, I was just thinking: "hey if he leaving, why bothering with his units, just go destroy some key buildings, that will do". But by now I think this is a mistake, because of the next step: the less anti air units, the better the mutas... By the way, when targeting fire on sentries, I should also say that it is important not to use all your units to target fire. The ideal, I think, is to take lets say 3 or 4 hydras to target one sentry, and another 3 or 4 to target another one. Otherwise, given that there forcefields, you are going to waste your push.
4. thanks to regulator, I didn't think the hydra/zergling synergy in that sense, but I guess that's definitely true...
5. About the first wave (zergling harass), schnullerbacke remarks that I am not always doing it. This is something I already tell in the original post. But I can repeat it: if the guy expands real quickly (at around 6), you don't necessarily need to make zerglings (although you can, as your zerglins will be useful later anyway). Where zerglings are necessary is for later expands. for two reasons. 1. if the guy is late expanding, maybe this is because is preparing for some quick push... so you'd better be prepared. 2. sometimes the expand is delayed because the guy doesn't have the money to defend it. This is particularly true of early phoenixes play, which seem to be quite vulnerable to early zergling pressure. So this is the second reason for 6 mn zerglings : you want to punish protosses that are expanding, while doing some kind of early phoenixes harass.
6. @ Harbinger: Why did I sometimes throw down a roach warren? this is because I feared some kind of late 4 gate push. I think you can afford it.
The signs of a four gate - supposing you didn't actually see the four gates - are in my mind (from the most important to the less important): 1. not taking the second gas (this is actually why I always try to steal a gas to toss: if he doesn't destroy it, I think 4 gate). 2. chronoboosting several times the cybernetic core. 3. seeing stalkers in the front, and not sentries 4. before that, seeing high level of energy in the toss nexus, for later chronoboosting.
If you have all this, you can be pretty damn sure that a 4gate is coming. or if it is not coming, it is fine, because it then means that it is a less efficient expand that is coming (hence the possibility to get a roach warren without suffering too much).
About my losses in ZvP: I can find of three types:
1. losses with build orders are not this one: like four gate pushes or late one base tech pushes (especially recently on maps such as backwater) with this build 2. bad decision making and bad micro with your hydra push. (like lazily targeting buildings instead of units - something that I did so many times, when the toss retreats his units in the middle of his base). Also, if the toss manages to throw very good force fields for 30 secs, he has the time to reinforce and destroy your hydra push. But I have the feeling that such situation is due to me doing mistakes (taking the narrow path to his base, wastking seconds in front of his base at the crucial moment etc.) 3.with phoenix pressure, things can be pretty hard to deal with, as if you don't have enough hydras, he will just kill them+ classical annoying harassment stuff if you are not careful (queens and overlords)... The good thing to know is that if he has phoenixes, then he is weak at home for a while.
I've been trying a similar build for the last two weeks because I saw a bunch of post on TL talking about how bad the Hydra was and that Roaches are better. It seems to work well at my level of play (Gold) because most toss just 4-gate or go for the Deathball. Fast Hyrdas w/ sling support do a decent job at defending the first strat while preventing the second strat from ever getting to critical mass. Most of my losses are due to me screwing up something (forgetting to build spire on time, forgetting hydra range upgrade, or CANCELING MY FREAKIN LAIR upgrade at 80% on accident...)
I'm glad some players with better skills are starting to min/max a good build order for this as I have been very loosey-goosey which causes a lot of silly looking losses.
So I guess I'm saying this works well at Gold/Plat level even if done less that perfectly because it is unexpected and most Toss at this level don't know how to react properly.
all the top zergs on na ladder are being super aggressive with lots of lings early on. as toss you can't even risk leaving your base til like 80 food it's too risky. so protoss is shifting to even more turtle style until obs then you can actually see if he has droned/is droning
On March 24 2011 00:10 Alejandrisha wrote: all the top zergs on na ladder are being super aggressive with lots of lings early on. as toss you can't even risk leaving your base til like 80 food it's too risky. so protoss is shifting to even more turtle style until obs then you can actually see if he has droned/is droning
Unless you scout with hallucination, notice 4 gasses and low drone / ling counts, then you can pressure. If you don't notice a large group of lings at all, I suggest getting hallucination.
Also all the replays you posted in the op, or at least the 5 or 6 I have watched weren't a normal 3gate sentry expand, at least not without some variation. I feel that a normal turtle protoss with sentry and a FE will fare a lot better than these guys who do fake FE 1 base all ins or 3gate stargate THEN expand... It just felt like you were blind countering a lot of the time as they didn't pressure except with their first push of air units or that one guy who did mass hallucination on zealots, very non standard play.
With a proper 3gate FE, the toss will have enough FF to pick off a large group of your hydra and won't end up losing as much material as the guys who only have 6 or so sentries. So although I like the strategy, the replays I watched kinda felt like they were odd games and not very standard FE builds from protoss.
I really like the sound of this build and it seems to blind counter a lot of the gimmicky stuff that is so popular on NA ladder (especially in platinum league).
One Question...
Is it possible to get a 3rd Queen around 26-30 food or will that impact the timings too much?
Macro should be a byproduct of your trained ability to use game mechanics well. It shouldn't be a concentration, nor should it be luxury. You need great macro skills, but macro should be subconscious. If you are saying that you should give up production for army value, then you aren't taking into consideration of certain situations. If he ISN'T attacking, there should be no reason to attack (unless of course you can just end the game right there with whatever you have). Zerg really isnt an aggresive race in zvp. If you try to be the aggresor, you are going to fall way behind in economy and the toss player can easily wipe out whatever units you pump out with a smaller army.
On March 24 2011 04:17 Darkkal wrote: Macro should be a byproduct of your trained ability to use game mechanics well. It shouldn't be a concentration, nor should it be luxury. You need great macro skills, but macro should be subconscious. If you are saying that you should give up production for army value, then you aren't taking into consideration of certain situations. If he ISN'T attacking, there should be no reason to attack (unless of course you can just end the game right there with whatever you have). Zerg really isnt an aggresive race in zvp. If you try to be the aggresor, you are going to fall way behind in economy and the toss player can easily wipe out whatever units you pump out with a smaller army.
I disagree entirely. There are timings where Z can hit P, and to not go for them simply because you "should" be only playing a macro and responsive strategy is narrow minded.
Protoss can play greedy to the point that it is more economic to apply pressure to them to level the macro lead than it is to try to just plain out macro them without any engagement. If you can trade armies while its more economic for you as the zerg, then you can and probably should do it. Zerg generally has a better time when the engagements are small, rather than when in the late game and there are death balls. Also there is the concept of forcing, and also opening up other timing windows with said forcing.
Of course you can try to just play greedier and get a macro advantage, but the way PvZ works, P can still apply pressure to Z to slow down their macro. That is exactly what the strategy is in this thread, only with the other race.
"b. prepare for fight! you little lazy coward macro zerg!"
Nice post though. Gonna try this out tonight.
<edit> I'm curious, when you go with this plan and you do end up suspecting 4 gate do you always throw a roach warren down to defend? Have you tried mass ling or ling/bling instead?
I'm going to preface this by saying that I'm a random player, and I plan on trying this build sometimes when I spawn as a Z in ZvP. It's a great idea, and I like it way better than playing standard zerg, which feels really unstable at the best of times, and never feels like you can really safely attack. With that being said, I have to offer this criticism:
Maybe I'm being silly, but my feeling about this build is that Protoss aren't used to this hydra/ling timing, so you're able to do them a lot of damage because you catch them by surprise, at a stage where they're used to sitting back and probably about to start building colossi - reliably, to the point where
Since my remission, I have not seen any colossus void ray ball AT ALL. Not one in around 50 zvps
But I think that once it becomes more well-known, protoss will start being able to scout it and potentially hold it without much damage, the same as any other build - if you know it's coming, you can hold it. If you try switching to mutas without doing at least some damage to put you ahead, you're basically dead. 2-3 cannons per line + stalkers can stop basically all muta pressure - although I could see it being a bit hairy for a little while as the mutas come rolling in right after the hydra attack ends - and in the end, when the deathball comes, you're basically down 8-10 corruptors and up 8-10 mutas.
I like the early timing attack though, and I like using mutas as a good way to stay ahead. The problem with PvZ is that even if the Z gets ahead, he can't always stay ahead in the face of a giant deathball, and this is one really great way to prevent that.
Great post! Finally a zerg is thinking outside the box. A question though. If the opponent decides to do some form of 6 gate push after his expansion how would you deal with that? Would the hydra ling be enough to make a large dent in the stalkers and sentries? And if you go the super aggressive path, is it a little bit all in ish? Because it seems like if the protoss puts up cannons and holds off the push, you would be far behind in the drone count.
hydra push is bound to be effective, only Colossus and Storm is cost effective against hydras. but you should be active with your creep spread, cause the bonus makes Hydras obviously better.
I noticed that in the games I watched, the hydra push didn't win outright, but the mutas really cut the throat of the protoss. It's so easy for them to turtle that I really like this transition. I have been trying to work muta into my zvp for a while now, and this seems like a very good opportunity. Excellent post
It really catches most of the protoss players I play off guard when I try to do some sort of attack into them. For so long us Zergys have had to sit back and just defend constantly. Before the patch even came out I thought about using Infestors more into my play. Something that has been working wonders for me is Infestor/Hydra drops. Most effective mid to late game after an expo has been made. Fungal on workers destroy enough but now they can't run away leaving massive devastation to the worker line. Of course the player will catch on and have appropriate defense against this but if you can hurt the worker lines enough times production will be awful for them which you can then follow up with an attack you find appropriate. For my games this has happened towards a stargating protoss. So worker death plus roach hydra push was win for me
Am I the only one that doesn't like attacking with hydras like this? I feel like you can only do this if you can get creep spread up to (or close to) your opponent's natural. Otherwise you are essentially sacrificing your hydras because you can't retreat with them. Or is that the point?
Dude, THANK YOU, this is sooo sexy... Seems perfect. I was bored and sad playing macro games against protoss and facing those friggin colossi, nothing I could pull off worked. Then I tried these hydra pushes at 10 minutes. Pretty good except I didn't know how to react to the colossi few seconds latter when the protoss survived... With an early agression with lings and trasition into muta this MU seems a LOT better, thank you a lot, can't wait to try this out.
I just don't ever understand why taking an In-base hatch prior to a natural would have priority. Even if you don't expect to drone you still have the option, and having that hatch at your natural doesn't make you as suspect for early pressure. 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
I think you should definitely get an extra queen in there while you are waiting to spot the expansion. It will allow you to use your queens more aggressively to defend an eventual 4gate, since you can lose one and not lose any production, plus that extra creep tumor will speed up your hydra push considerably on larger maps.
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.
I have been playing myself a lot with the hydra/ling 10 min push, but never thought of following up with mutas! Will try! Also, I think traditionnal muta ling is also really back in the game because of the amulet being thrown out...
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.
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
Thanks everybody for their remarks! All these helpful comments make me see tons of possibilities for improvement, it's really exciting.
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).
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.
I think if the toss just does good forcefields you will kill absolutely nothing with the first wave, I used to do this early pressure stuff in a bit lower master but it just stopped working as my opponents could use forcefields a bit better, so I don't see how it is possible to get the lings out alive. However I may as well give something like this a go seeing as I lose every ZvP unless they 4gate me.
By an odd coincidence, the last two ZvP's I've won were played along similar lines (although nothing like as streamlined or thought-through). Lings and roaches held off the early push, then moved forward to harass the expansion he's made / wants to make. Lair + a few hydra next, in one game to directly attack, in the other to safeguard against the Void Ray followup that was indeed on the way. Then mutas off 2-3 bases. It's a genuine 'Oh, you didn't see this coming? Then you're dead,' and it makes a refreshing change to be on the other end of one of those
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.
I like the idea of early aggression from Zerg, but I think the main problem is Hydra off creep. I'm actually watching GSTL right now and they are playing clips from February GSTL where IMNestea does similar aggression against STSquirtle 3 gate expand into stargate and wins outright.
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.
I have been doing tons of 11 mn roach pushes, with burrow, speed, tuneling claws, +1/+1 upgrades; sometimes it works, but from my experience it is far less convincing than hydra lings. The point of hydras is their range, especially with range upgrade, and their higher DPS; beyond the fact that hydras also deal better with air.
So many comments regarding the fear of being unable to retreat with the hydras - why not make creep from OLs? You've got the lair tech to spew creep, and a third queen could place a few tumours on the way or next the protoss base (instead of trying to make the creep highway all the way from home). It could even be possible to invest in OL speed, if you can spare the 100/100.
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.
As far as I remember, I already put some replays with shattered Temple; but no one with tal'darim altar. I think that overall longer distances is better (despite that it delays a bit the timing for the hydra push), as it allows you to develop more quietly before, and make things easier with mutas (avoiding counter basically). This is why I would recommend not to break rocks in scrap station.
By the way, I started to test drop possibilities, and it seems really promising: as you are on four gases, you don't have many resources problems. Basically you trade 2 or 3 hydras to nullify any kind of static defense, solve narrow path issues and creep issues, and diminish seriously the efficiency of sentries. So instead of having half an army attacking, you have 100% of a bit smaller army (around 12 hydras and 30 zerglings) to hit at the crucial timing ( a timing which doesn't change with the drop technique, maybe delay the attack by 5 or 10 secs). All this makes it very very interesting. I'll try to post replays later...
Tried this build a couple of times and got stomped hard by protoss who sat on 2 base and massed gateway units. Its probably my failure in macro (couldn't seem to get as many hydra/lings as you suggested in the time allowed) but I couldn't make it work.
I tried this build a few more times, and it shows good potential.
But as you mentioned, I don't feel like it's that good on close positions. It feels like you have to make a bit more zerglings while you wait for the expand, and this would transition better into +1 speed/bane, for the added mobility to safely expand to another main. This is still a nice transition though, but off topic.
One loss I had though was that I didn't clean up the sentries with hydras/lings, only the stalkers, and +2 sentries destroy +1 mutas. You need to have at least 2:1 to effectively engage sentries. But sentries are slow, so I could have won by simply sniping the probes, never engaging and going back for one more hydra/ling push. Live and learn...
yeah, I do these kind of builds too, and from my experience it works damn good on the ladder. It's really nice against P on close positions when he goes 3gate expand and then rushes for colossi. For me it doesnt work against forge expansions, as you cannot ling harrass, and on big maps, as I its pretty hard to attack with hydras there, and even if I do, it's already hard to reinforce even without cutting 4 hydras for the spire. Also good 3gate (fake) pushes followed up by some low tech attack 5gate/robo, 5gate/Stargate, 6gate absolutly destroy me with it on smaller maps, because there it's hard to get the eco for Hydras.
I prefer Roaches with all 3 upgrades. Gonna do a pro and cons on that here:
roaches: + burrow denies Force fields + they are faster and cheaper, so reinforcing is easier + they can tank some damage and they are fast so you can pull back easier + if he gets out a colossus or even has one already, they are way more useful + you can do roach all-in attacks earlier than the timing Im aiming for, which means protoss might shit his pants ^^ + u can do it of 3gas, giving you spare minerals to get a 3rd while you attack, or go for the 4th gas and no only get the spire earlier, but roaches and air dont conflict in the mineral/gas balancing (+) I like burrow microing single roaches (kind of zergish blink micro) +/- roaches get stronger following a kind of linear function, thus it is easy to do damage with smaller counts, and are good at trading units, however if you cant trade them, they cant keep up with the exponential growth of protoss strenght - they need a lot of micro - you need very good lair + roach upgrade timing in your build - you should be sure he doesnt have air - they get outranged by units behind wall ins, so it can be tough to break through smaller chokes - they are cheap, so they cost all your larvae and supply
Hydras: + they are good against most units he should have on the field at that point (GW units, immortals, air) + you force the protoss to tech (at least if he isnt crazy good with Forcefields) + hydras dont require to much micro. make sure they spread out and they will kill their opponents on they're own + hydras are expensive while being costefficient, so you get to have more spare larvae and supply +/- Hydras get stronger exponentially, which means if protoss doesnt get any hardcountering tech on the field (templar, colossi) your army just gets stronger than protoss, BUT hydras in low numbers are easy to kill and dont deal a lot of damage because they die so fast. so good forcefields can kill those expensive units without those small numbers doing a lot of damage +/- they are ground to air, which makes them universal early on, but once you get a spire, your main anti air will be mutas and corruptors, not to mention that zerg air is even gas heavier than mutas, leaving you no choice as to stop hydra production at least for a while - reinforcing is harder due to the slow speed of hydras - you have to go to lair tech to get the hydra den, and only when this finishes you can start the crucial range attack - you cannot retreat with hydras due to slow speed
ofc this list isnt complete, but thats at least everything that comes to my mind right now.
I tried some 10 min zergling/hydra pushes before, but your description gave me a lot more precise. Especially the muta play after the 2nd push great. blings would be nice, too!
On March 24 2011 04:17 Darkkal wrote: Macro should be a byproduct of your trained ability to use game mechanics well. It shouldn't be a concentration, nor should it be luxury. You need great macro skills, but macro should be subconscious. If you are saying that you should give up production for army value, then you aren't taking into consideration of certain situations. If he ISN'T attacking, there should be no reason to attack (unless of course you can just end the game right there with whatever you have). Zerg really isnt an aggresive race in zvp. If you try to be the aggresor, you are going to fall way behind in economy and the toss player can easily wipe out whatever units you pump out with a smaller army.
How do you counter the Protoss Death Ball if you spend your time waiting for 200 pop ?
Macpo, this is awesome. I played around with it a bunch yesterday, first against the AI to get used to the build and then vs a practice partner to see how well I could pull it off against a real opponent. I went 2-2 against him with this build. I tried it 4 times straight, just to give it a shot, without caring what build my practice buddy was using. I even told him I was going to use this build every time, and he still lost to it twice(he thought I was joking about doing this a bunch). He said 15+ hydras and lings were a real shock because other zergs just don't do this kind of thing.
The ling harass is a great idea, and I'm trying it, but maybe I'm just not good enough yet to do it properly. Lings always seem to get shut down early by the presence of cannons or sentries. I will say though, I feel alot safer in the early game with more lings than I'm used too. The map control, vision, synergy with the hydra attack, and ability to take down rocks early on for a possible later third base, make their cost(in my opinion), highly worth it.
I like the extra queen thing, glad someone else posted about that. The creep is nice, but not really necessary. I mean, so far I haven't had too much trouble needing to retreat for any reason especially because I know all those mutas are on the way. Also, the walk distance with hydras off creep just isn't terrible on maps like shattered temple. I'm really diligent about creep spread anyway, so that helps some. The other thing an extra queen helps out with is fending off an early void ray, or some warp prism drop harass(which my friend is very fond of lol).
I gave this build a shot on scrap station too! I wasn't sure how it would go, but from the loading screen I decided I would delay the spire just a bit in order to nydus lings and hydras into his base. This worked out really well because my opponent happened to go for fast dt's into expand. I knew he'd have a small army. I think it's possible that this build could make use of some more offensive nydus experimentation. It'd be great also for getting hydras across a large map quickly, or even for retreating them. I'll play around with this some more and see if I can fit a nydus in more efficiently in future games.
Finally, as soon as I tried this build out the first time I started to wonder if it'd be great vs terran too with some modification: Keep the basic BO, but throw down a baneling nest, and instead of a hydra den +range, get an infestation pit +energy ups. Instead of using all that gas on hydras you can get a decent amount of banes and a couple fast infestors ready to fungal right out of the egg. The spire seems like it could hit the same timing. I mean, I'll have to try it before I say anything else, but I wonder if this would work out well in ZvT.
Anyway, I'll play with this build some more. I love how the early lair and high economy helps this be so versatile and mean. Let's be aggressive zergs :D
This is a great strategy, and also a great start for ZvP. Zerg finally goes back into the aggressive harassment mode it's been known for, instead of dronedrone. =D
On March 26 2011 02:52 ZombiesOMG wrote:The ling harass is a great idea, and I'm trying it, but maybe I'm just not good enough yet to do it properly. Lings always seem to get shut down early by the presence of cannons or sentries.
If there is a forge, take a quick third. If you see 2+ cannons it is entirely safe. If you don't, it is still generally safe, because he won't attack before his +1 is done, and you'll need the extra larvae by then anyway.
As for sentries, if there's only a few of them, keep dancing with the hope that he'll waste precious forcefields. If he has a lot (8+, MC-style), any other tech is delayed, thus you can delay your hydra push slightly to have that critical mass that won't care about forcefields.
If he is turtling hard on his natural (warpgate wall, 2+ cannons), I think you can skip the spire, get drop, and just go fucking kill him. Sac a fast OV/make an overseer to see his tech/goo his robo, and take a brief moment to figure out the best spot for the doom drop.
If we're talking about a forge-FE, then it requires another opening entirely, but I find these pretty straightforward to beat.
tryed your Strat in a game on Xelnaga and it worked wonders!
first attack when speed was finished, i killed nearly 5 sentrys when his exp was up and 3 Zealots, run by into his main and killed a total of 10 workers.
the wirst hydra push dealed just some dmg, becouse i did alot of shit and got forcefielded, (the new pack of nearly 6 sentrys delayed his robo so much insane!)
then i build up a nice army mixed hydras lings and mutas. he attacked my third, was up and started droning up. he forcefieldet my Hydras away but my ling muta count was to much for him after the 15 sec of force field my hydras could attack his high stalker count and he "tryed" to run home, no chance against muta ling.
i got all my mutas attacked the main base workerline. whyle my hydra ling pack attacked his expansion. then GG
i missed just 2 or 3 injects so its okay for my 24 Diamond XD
Having yet to try it, I think it's great to think out of the box. The one-dimensional play style of Zerg isn't fun to me anymore, and maybe there's a colorful world of ravaging Zerg armies and scared Protoss armies cowering in their bases that still needs to be discovered. Will try as soon as possible. Props, dude.
I've always liked this type of pressure as it seems the toss player is doing 3 things at once while getting that death ball, which is probing(economic), units and tech. It usually is a obscure combination of all 3, this type of pressure lets us control what type of a game we want, and it's completely acceptable as we can have both our naturals saturated by the time their nexus goes up. I started to do builds which had me saturate, get 3 gas, get third/lair, and push with plenty roaches and force the player to make immortals instead of colossus, allowing me to go hydra and attacking finally as my third saturated. Idra does this aggressive play too as well, as we are familiar of how he attacks speedling speedroach as 4 gaters expand if their 4 gate fails. (against macroing, taking third and still having a great chance of winning)
Yet, we can still argue that scouting/droning, and getting the perfect moment to start producing units is ultimately better than having these timed attacks, its completely up to your individual playstyle. As I see myself, I'm always scared of doing this type of stuff, as I know if I make this mistake it will cost me the game. I'd say though, that the pressure will allow you to slow down their tech at the best, and in terms of meta game, have them feel like turtling. This is great for zergs who would rather think like "I have better economy"let me win" then those who say "I am winning, let me secure it by making more drones".
Also, as we see much more openings and balls from toss players that we can't just reinforce as we see them move out, and win due to sheer larva management, this will let us control the game, if not let us feel like we are.
Glad to hear that it works for you guys. I would be really happy to see replays from you, to see how you do it and take good things from it! it would be really instructive for me...
I've been doing a very similar strategy and I am so glad that zergs are learning that the 10 to 11 minute window is very scary for toss to deal with when they are going colossus tech. You say that the hydra ling push shouldn't be game changing but in my opinion if you see the robo bay there should be no reason to not send more lings in to win the game. As long as hydras have range and you have lings putting pressure on the gateway units its gg
i just watched some of the replays, it seems to me that the transition from a hydra force to trade out some of his ground army into a quick muta follow up is really good. it seems to me that u are bound to lose all ur hydra force in that attack there though but generally i like this aggressive build, thanks for sharing.
For the last two days, I have been testing the hydra drop version of the build, and I am very enthousiastic with it!
My main problem with the build, until now, was a strong forcefield defense against the hydra push. But as Moja suggested to me (big thanks to him), to droppify the build makes it much stronger, as it solves this problem. It works absolutely wonderfully (did 5 games, won all of them, including against slightly favored opponents - I am in Master league).
Basically, the trade is the following: 3 hydras less, vs drop tech.
You can still drop with 10/12 hydras and 30 zerglings or so, and what you get from it is:
1. nullify static defense. 2. almost nullify forcefields (maybe the most important). 3. have a much better unit positioning, as you welcome the toss units on his narrow ramp (very important too!). 4. you can do huge damage by sending some zerglings on the probes.
Definitely worth 3 hydras imho. Mutas coming a little while after just finish the job. you still have around the same number of mutas.
Also timings for gas are a bit clearer: when you see 3 gate expand, go for lair tech; put your three guys back in gas, and build another gas. produce as many drones as you can. When lair tech is finished, build the other gases, and it should be fine. Overall, 40 drones is a good number, although not absolutely necessary.
Start the drop tech and hydra range at around 7:30/ 8; overlord speed at 8:30/8:45.
you can fill in the overlords in your base, or close to his base, depending on how you feel I guess.
On March 27 2011 02:23 Tumor wrote: the drop option is a very good solution in this MU
i do it very often most of the time on Temple, Meta when we have close air or at Scrap station. it does wonders that u cant achieve with a Hydra "run"
the drop cost 300/300 what is about 6 Hydras in Gas or 3 Mutas later on. but the dmg u can do is it worth. most of the time its a game winner.
thx again for sharing this ZvP strat
Wouldn't you get overlord speed for scouting anyway? Unless you scout with an overseer, but I don't see why you can't scout with speed if you plan on dropping.
Plus, fighting under overlords spreading creep will make your hydras that much more effective, easily making up for the extra 200/200. With proper drop micro, you might even be able to cut hydra range out of the build, simply because forcefields won't be nearly as effective.
Plus you can drop lings to assist your muta followup... Gonna watch those replays now.
July actually used this style to take out Huk on XelNaga Caverns. He delayed the expansion long enough with 20+ lings, then pushed with ten hydras while taking the gold. He retreated and made a dozen mutalisks while massing speedlings and denying Huk's third. Finally, he made a bazillion banelings for the finishing blow, focus firing the colossus with his mutas and rolling the banelings into the sentries.
It worked out beautifully; Huk was always one step behind.
Huk placed some really poor forcefields, but I think the ability to attack two places at once with mutalisks and ling/remaining hydra works better than drop tech.
I worry about the retreat of the hydras; it seems fragiel if you lose them without doing a lot of damage. Maybe fast burrow?
Great post, this goes well with the other post below this about the answer to the 200/200 PvZ fight. This style seems to be what zerg needs to win the matchup without praying for some late game shenanigans.
Thanks for the July reference! I'd pretty much like seeing the game... would you have any reference?
Otherwise I have to insist: I think that the drop version is really simply better, for the reasons I gave (unit positioning, especially you can surround the choke when you drop in the main). you gain a few seconds of free hits (even one or two is not neglectable imo) it makes sentries half useless, static defense completely useless, you can send a bunch of lings in the main mineral line, so that even if you lose the fight, he may have lost half of his economy capacities, you can destroy the cybernetic core to prepare the coming of mutas...
Moreover, to be honest, the building is pretty easy to do, as long as you have the timings in mind, You can go for semi automatic mode, until you drop and muta harass, where some micro is necessary...
edit: and yes, phoenixes may be a problem for hydras in the beginning (small groups of hydras can be lifted up if you are not careful); but later, not at all: who would go for phenixes after facing some hydra push and having held it with difficulties (supposing that you have time and money to counter the muta wave, which comes at around 13, i.e. 2 mn after the hydra push)?
1) Scout four warpgate. Makes 3 roaches and a boat load of lings. 2) Scout expansion - keep making lings! 3) Pressure, force cancel on exansion. 4) Drone, get lair, get second gas, but keep pressuring until cannons/sentires are in sufficient number to back out. 5) Lair finishes - get second two gas. 6) Lair finishes. Get macro hatch?! Take gold. Macro hatch likely in preparation of mineral excess and heavy ling play. 6) Get roach speed, get hydra den, hydra range, many hydras and lings. Get +1 ranged attack. 7) Collosus is fairly late at 10 minutes just starting robo. +1 attack and 5 gates slowed huk down a lot. 8) Get more hydras. 9) Attack with hydra ling when opponent is out of position to get ready to take third, put down spire. Snipe sentries if possible with hydra ling (preparing for baneling phase). 10) Make lings and drone up third. 11) Ranged attack finishes, start carapace. Deny third for as long as possible. 12) Spire finishes - make 7-10 mutas, many lings. Gas at your third just starting. Add baneling next. Get speed asap. +1 spire attack. 13) Max out on lings. Spend everything else on banelings! 14) More banelings! 15) More banelings! 16) Maxed; take fourth, try to split enemy with muta harass, attack in one place. 17) Win?!
I have been watching this game and I have to say that I feel that July got a bit lucky, especially at step 9), when he attacks with zerglings and hydras. And this is precisely because that you can't expect to be lucky all the time that I would recommend a drop at that point. imagine July would have dropped at 9), it would have been much better! Also, his mutas are coming very late, as compared to what I would like (and is possible)... I think it makes the whole attack less punchy! (more macro oriented). Anyway, great game to watch!
I am going to check this out. I've downloaded a few replays. Even as a high master zerg, ZvP really frustrates me and it's really encouraging to see someone experiment with builds for the benefit of others.
zerg on 40 drones 2 base and even 50 drones 3 base, i guess this is mostly roach + some upgrades and some speedlings, can kill/abuse a protoss that is being very greedy and trying to secure a 3rd base before he has an adequate amount of colosi to control the ground (i suppose less than 4). aggressive zergs will be able to kill the protoss before he can get this "death ball" that i have heard about while macro zergs will be able to deal with it in 2 or 3 maxed armies worth on 60+ drones. It's really a stylistic thing
On March 30 2011 17:13 Alejandrisha wrote: zerg on 40 drones 2 base and even 50 drones 3 base, i guess this is mostly roach + some upgrades and some speedlings, can kill/abuse a protoss that is being very greedy and trying to secure a 3rd base before he has an adequate amount of colosi to control the ground (i suppose less than 4). aggressive zergs will be able to kill the protoss before he can get this "death ball" that i have heard about while macro zergs will be able to deal with it in 2 or 3 maxed armies worth on 60+ drones. It's really a stylistic thing
It seems the bigger the ball the more effective it gets, relatively. So it'll probably be better to take the agressive route.
when i try this build vs a very passive and backsitting eco toss, i dont really could make damage.
when he expanded, he had a good amount of sentlots to defend (to less lings by my side?) my drop failed slightly, because he knew that i would drop anywhere (we tried some games before) even when i would drop surprisingly, i looks easy holdable for a camping fast exe toss. (masterleague)
replays would be really interesting! as I can't see how you can "easily" hold it,..
@ Alejandrisha : I am afraid you did'nt really read the post, as it's not about roach zergling all-in.
In addition to that, it's not a matter of greedy or not greedy toss players. ZHM waves work well against any 3 gate sentry expand. Moreover, when we see that macro zerg have so many problems dealing with the late game they nevertheless target (as they are macro), we start wondering if chosing this way is a matter of style or just stubbornness.
Idra vs cruncher last week end was so typical of this: 1st game, idra macro like crazy and loses; 2nd game hydra drop, and he wins... (even though imho his drop was kind of late, plus a muta follow up is easier and more efficient than repeated hydra drops).
Great OP. It seems that a lot of Zergs are stuck in that mode where they macro macro macro in ZvP and hope to win, which is pretty much impossible vs 3 base turtle Toss on old Shakuras. Protoss is actually more powerful than Zerg if you let them macro, kinda like how Zerg is more powerful than Terran if the Zerg is allowed to completely macro for the first 10 minutes.
On March 31 2011 00:59 Macpo wrote: replays would be really interesting! as I can't see how you can "easily" hold it,..
@ Alejandrisha : I am afraid you did'nt really read the post, as it's not about roach zergling all-in.
In addition to that, it's not a matter of greedy or not greedy toss players. ZHM waves work well against any 3 gate sentry expand. Moreover, when we see that macro zerg have so many problems dealing with the late game they nevertheless target (as they are macro), we start wondering if chosing this way is a matter of style or just stubbornness.
Idra vs cruncher last week end was so typical of this: 1st game, idra macro like crazy and loses; 2nd game hydra drop, and he wins... (even though imho his drop was kind of late, plus a muta follow up is easier and more efficient than repeated hydra drops).
Doesn't that give us to think?
yes yes i'm not talking about ling roach all in either. i'm just talking low econ aggression and only making units for timings you feel are coming
So I'm looking at this and I'm really worried about:
a) The lack of a roach warren. I feel if he does a cancel on the nexus and fakes a four-gate, or even some 3-gate pressure, you'll melt. b) The time after the hydra drop, before mutas pop. A counter attack here would be nasty. Or even just after mutas pop it feels pretty fragile.
Basically this is a hydra-ling drop timing push when collosi are just before popping, meaning he's spent a lot of cash on tech and very little on units past sentries, which are worthless against a hydra drop. The drop wrecks economy and lowers the unit count, allowing for a tech switch into mutalisks that is quite devastating.
I think there needs to be a plan to get scouting on a robo or not. If it's a heavy gateway army being made, this will fail badly, so that somehow needs to be accounted for, as well as a roach warren in case of a push.
I wonder if making some speedlings early to delay a nexus/threaten a backstab if he moves out would keep you safe from 3-gate. You need something certainly.
After safely getting to muta-ling also needs something else to handle pushes. I think adding a baneling nest with your spire would be perfect, as you already have plenty of lings and drop tech for baneling bombs.
Basically it's looking a bit risky early and all-in-ish later, so I'm trying to think of good next steps to avoid that.
Particularly look at the game on XN though with the hydra drop; if he'd immediately counterattacked after killing all the hydras, you'd take a lot of damage.
On March 31 2011 04:45 Dragar wrote:I think there needs to be a plan to get scouting on a robo or not. If it's a heavy gateway army being made, this will fail badly, so that somehow needs to be accounted for, as well as a roach warren in case of a push.
I wonder if making some speedlings early to delay a nexus/threaten a backstab if he moves out would keep you safe from 3-gate. You need something certainly.
Since we're including a drop now in this build, getting fast overlord speed is gonna give us all the scouting we need at that point.
And there are early speedlings included. As long as you don't see a nexus, you either save larvae or spawn zerglings. On map with open naturals, I don't think it can be a mistake to just make speedlings until any threat is gone.
As for the roach warren, you can hold basically anything with speedlings + spine crawlers on most maps. Logically, on the maps where spine crawlers are less useful, your opponent will also have a harder time taking his expansion, thus making more speedlings is a decent option.
I'm totally awful, (plat, but should be in gold if not silver- my record since the reset has been 2-4, and of my last 10, I'm 3-7), but what on earth are you supposed to do if he's got an observer following my overlords when I try to drop?
Not saying this isnt a good strategy but after watching a few replays your protoss opponents were just pitful. On metalopolis protoss 3 gate expands adds one stargate, expands again with less than 5 sentry, and still manages to be floating 1000 minerals when your push comes. Most of the master level protosses dont even push 80 apm.
A replay of this vs a 3gate expand into 6 gate +1 attack would be good. without roaches I dont know how will hold this off.
On March 31 2011 14:12 Obscura.304 wrote: I'm totally awful, (plat, but should be in gold if not silver- my record since the reset has been 2-4, and of my last 10, I'm 3-7), but what on earth are you supposed to do if he's got an observer following my overlords when I try to drop?
Make an overseer, snipe the observer. Then goo the robo while you attack to make sure that colossus never comes out, or at least it doesn't have range.
Or snipe the observer, then take additional bases instead of attacking while he's frantically trying to find your drop until his new observer pops out.
Or send empty overlords in his base, attack the front.
Or stack your overlords, send half of them to one end of his base, the other half to the other end, and make him guess as to which side has the units.
Recent posts make me realize there is still a lot to explore in this build! (which makes me quite happy) Just some remarks (which don't claim to put an end to discussion):
1) @ Dragar: I think your remarks on specific timings during which zerg is vulnerable are true. I just want to minimize this, for two reasons
a - First these windows are quite short: the first one lasts from the moment your start lair to the moment you finish hydra den, both of which are two fast techs. just after that, your can start pumping hydras... it's also a timing where protoss pushes do not really happen that much (although they could potentially!) Most of the time tosses just fake push and retreat as soon as they see some running by zerglings. This is even more true for the second timing (just after hydra drop, before muta wave). This window is really small.
b - Second and above all: these are very risky timings for protoss, as he is most of the time blind at that moment (after 3 gate expand, or after hydra drop). I have been discussing with protosses who were complaining of my build being imba; and i just ask them: "why didn't you put more pressure"? the answer was: "well, it's too risky, you could have a lot of zerglings at that time [say 7/8mn mark], even roaches, etc."
for the second timing you mentioned:
First, how can you know, after hydra drop, that mutas are coming in one mn; that zerg has nothing, and that you should go now? not obvious!
Actually there are big reasons to think the contrary: imo, here is toss state of mind: " He just did some attack and somehow I dealt with it, although I lost a lot, so I am fine, stick to the original plan mass up units before going, at least wait for some colossi."
I mean, would you go out, just after a significant push, with the few units left, without the colossi yet (coming soon, but not having them right then, or not enough, only one etc), whereas you know zerg can replenish his army quickly? not sure... This is reinforced by the fact that protoss is likely to undersestimate the problem, when he barely trades off armies. he may think situation is ok ("zerg made a timing push and sacrificed drone production to do it, I hold it; therefore I am better than him, even if I don't have much/any army left) whereas this is absolutely not the case, because of coming mutas: if armies were trade off during the drop, you are very likely to win with mutas push.
But this may change for protoss players getting used to the build... Then zerg may have to make defense (still I think that zerg can definitely pump a lot of zerglings between 2nd and 3rd waves, if he didn't go for the most all-inish version of the strat)
And above all, for the moment it's really not the case, so just enjoy it!
About fake expand into late 4 gate push... I guess this may be really annoying, but I haven't faced it yet, so I can't really tell... Maybe throwing down lots of spines could be the less worse solution...
2)Yep I am not sure whether I have been playing it against 6 gate; I was told quite a lot that my opponents were not really good... So I would recommend, if you watch the replays, to look first the ones that I added recently with the hydra drop version, especially the one on xel naga caverns... (the opponent was favored, and I did'nt win right away...
i really like playing 10 pool against protoss watch squirtle vs moon shakura's plateau where he transitioned back to macro with an advantage in early game
On March 31 2011 14:12 Obscura.304 wrote: I'm totally awful, (plat, but should be in gold if not silver- my record since the reset has been 2-4, and of my last 10, I'm 3-7), but what on earth are you supposed to do if he's got an observer following my overlords when I try to drop?
Wait, so let me try to get this straight, this is... Speedlings to force him to stay in his base, then a wave of Hydralisks followed up by a shit ton of Mutalisks?
Also you were damned lucky he didn't pressure with 3-gate; he turned his whole army to deal with a 2 ling runby. I doubt you could have stopped him if he'd poked.
I love the way you put it in the OP, zergs are "addicted" to drones and macro. They can't even see due to their addiction.....But as I've been saying since the game came out, Starcraft 2 is really fucking new and being such a new game, we have very little grasp on HOW to play the best. Once it's gotten into the sub conscience it's just defaulted to without any thought.
Wonderful thought process into the build, and I'll be trying the idea out soon.
I like the OP tought process a lot. Basically, ZvP is the new TvZ (but the Z is the T now) Remember some months ago, terran thought that you HAVE to do early damage or die in TvZ (now we see some TvZ with a non harass T who win, but that's not the point) The current state of ZvP is the same : the zerg has to delay the P, slow his macro, reduce his food count before the P is on 3 bases because at this point, the P macro and production capacity become unstoppable. When a P has 15+ warpgates, 1 stargate and 2 robos, larva inject can't keep up, and even if larva inject keep up, it's with vastly inferior cost effective units.
But when the 2nd base zerg macro kick in, is the time where the zerg can macro and produce much, much, much faster than the P (a standard macro game will see the zerg hit 200 food when the P just have 130-145 food). So the point is to use and abuse this timing so the P can never begin power macroing. This timing is when the P still have 3-4 gate and one robo or stargate, with 2 nearly but not yet saturated bases. At this time roaches and lings are still cost effective, sentries don't have 200 energy and the more you trade, the better (and that's OP philosophy)
I'm not a zerg expert, but the best example I saw are either Mondragon games in TSL or some Moon games in IEM Cologne.
The first is that it is well-thought out, and well-explained, and thoroughly supported with replays and evidence. Everything you do has a clear reason, and what's best of all is it isn't some gimmicky, "at 20 food make x, at 24 make y" kind of build, its more like a general thought process/philosophy. In other words, this isn't just a single tactic, it is a full strategy, and from what I can see a good one.
The second is the way it challenges common assumptions about how one "has" to play the game. "Zerg are defensive and macro oriented." Well, who says they have to be? "Hydras suck." Do they always, in all situations and timings? What if there's a timing where they don't suck, and what if there's a way to take advantage of it? The game is young yet. And the logic here is sound. It exploits a number of key timings (the 10 minute mark in particular, but also the 2-base period when Zerg macro can pump out a billion units much faster than the toss can) and it takes some good ideas and makes them better (as with using Hydras to neutralize sentries and kill stalkers before the muta following...god idea, but Hydra drops is an even better one with fewer holes).
But the last reason I love this is very simple: it looks fun. At the end of the day, its a game. If we don't enjoy it, why play? Hanging on for dear life, frantically macroing in fear...that doesn't sound that fun. maybe once in a while, but not all the time. But you know what does sound fun? Whipping up an army in the first 10 minutes that can go kick your opponent's ass. This does that.
How do you stop a 6-gate with this build? All you have are a few lings and hydras in the beginning vs tons of forcefields.
EDIT: I see how July executed a much refined version of build, and even went one step further with another transition after mutas into banes. He goes roach warren first before lair, and even got roach speed in case he got 6-gated, but ended up not making a single roach.
His plan was similar to yours, opening with lings to take map control on low econ ~30-35 drones --> transitioning into hydras for a bit of pressure (if opponent did not 6-gate) --> make 7 mutas for harass while droning up to 60-65 and taking 2 more bases --> mass speedling/baneling up to 200 --> go kill P before his death ball gets too big
re: protoss attack opportunities but being scared to move out - he can and should be using hallucinate to give him the knowledge that he needs. for whatever reason, he might not, but a build shouldn't count on your opponents mistakes.
it should be easy to use a ling early and a speed ovie later to see these protoss attacks coming. From there it's a matter of finding an effective defense that doesn't mess too much with your overall plans.
Thanks for posting this up Macpo and I love how you justified not showing your losses, "I give only my wins, keeping my losses away from public spaces where protosses could be watching us" =) I'm a Zerg player and it's freaking great to see a different approach realising the need to be aggressive rather than macro and wait or macro and some complicated high apm multi pronged attacks. Much appreciated!
I like how the last guy "Deceptikon" rages so hard and when you tell him that he should scout he says "how can I scout when you have lings," while the whole time he had an observer scouting lol
To answer six gate questions, here is a game I just played, where I win against a heavy gate toss (he actually only had 5 gateways, but the idea is here). That shows, that heavy gateway strats from the toss are not that hard to deal with ! Remark that even when the drop "fails", in the sense that he kills my units, I completely destroys one mineral line (around 20 probes), which makes it worth it. One thing I didn't try yet, is to put my army back when toss army is apparently stronger and that I have done satisfying damage in the mineral line...
Also, the interest of the replay is that I played badly in many aspects, and that there is a lot to improve still! : lost zerglings on the way, quite uselessly; when mutas were out, I was sitting on about 1.5K minerals for a while, and doing nothing with it, while mutas were harassing, i could have combined it with zerglings drops, etc.
- I suggest as a rule of thumb that against a six gate (or any gateway heavy style), you can delay the hydra drop by 1 mn 30 or 2 mn, and drop with a bigger army, and you will be doing fine. -as colossi will come later. So instead of dropping at 11, you can target the 13th mn mark.
- Do the 1st wave (zerglings), only if he hasn't put his nexus down yet. By that I mean: it's probably a bad idea to start pumping zerglings when you see the expand, because then it's too late. If this is the case (early expand), just forget zerglings, and do drones. You should do zerglings only when the expand is coming late; the idea is: he has not expanded yet, but you expect him to expand, so you do a wave of zerglings or two, (basically I would recommend doing units until you actually see the expand), and you can use it when he actually expands (if he doesn't, you will use it for your defense anyway...)
The interest of the 1st wave yet, is to punish greedy toss who goes air harass + 3 gate expands. In that case, it's really useful (basically makes you win the game).
I disagree with going for hydra over roach, yeah there are some advantages to hydra but the most important thing to eventually beating the Protoss is to have the gas to get a critical mass of muta - going roach will help you do that better.
The biggest advantage to going hydra is that you can deal with phoenix harass very easily but I think its more advantageous to struggle a little with phoenix harass and have the Protoss spend his gas on something other than colossus, if you make hydra chances are he will abandon phoenix production if he is making them and end up with a nasty deathball much quicker.
This of course assumes if he goes phoenix at all but if he doesn't its just another reason why roach is the better choice.
On April 02 2011 21:49 Sami` wrote: I disagree with going for hydra over roach, yeah there are some advantages to hydra but the most important thing to eventually beating the Protoss is to have the gas to get a critical mass of muta - going roach will help you do that better.
The biggest advantage to going hydra is that you can deal with phoenix harass very easily but I think its more advantageous to struggle a little with phoenix harass and have the Protoss spend his gas on something other than colossus, if you make hydra chances are he will abandon phoenix production if he is making them and end up with a nasty deathball much quicker.
This of course assumes if he goes phoenix at all but if he doesn't its just another reason why roach is the better choice.
Well, did you watch the replays? The spire finishes pretty much exactly when the drop is over and by then he has between 12-1500 minerals + gas. He makes 15 mutas in one round. Making roaches would make the drop a lot weaker since they would get screwed by forcefields.
just want to say I showed this thread to some of my Zerg friends who've tried it out against me in practice, and its quite, quite nasty.
One question though: in one of my games, just for kicks, rather than going robo (I even skipped the observer) I went for a fast twilight council, then blink+hallucination. I made a few sentries and then the rest I dumped into Zealots. I hallucinated a bunch of zealots, then sent my sentries away to stock energy/help me deal with the muta followup if it came.
Hallucinated chargelots + lots of real chargelots deal with the hydra/ling comp surprisingly easily. They also rendered the drop tech pretty meaningless (since I wasn't making forcefields or static defense anyway), and because I knew the Zerg build I knew he wouldn't have overseers to see through hallucination, or burrow to abuse my lack of observer. I was able to fend off the push with these forces alone, which let me use my next warp cycle on stalkers which I paired with the sentries to fend off the muta followup, at which point I went and killed my opponent.
Now, obviously this was a very specific strategy, predicated on knowing that:
my opponent would not be abusing burrow and my opponent would not have overseers and my opponent's primary attack wouldn't be coming until after both of my tech upgrades were done researching (twilight council takes 50 seconds, charge takes 140, hallucination 80 seconds, but hallucination can be started soon after you finish the core and go simultaneously while you research charge, so you can have both upgrades done 190 seconds after you start the council. in contrast, the robo tech takes 65 seconds for the facility, 65 for the bay, 75 for the colossus, which is 205 seconds without thermal lance. obviously this doesn't factor in CB, but you can actually use it on both tech upgrades, whereas you can't apply CB to the robo tech until you start making units or researching upgrades..in other words, if you skip robo completely you can get a sizable zealot force, a few sentries and charge + hallucinate around 9:30 or so, which at least in my case was time to stop the hydra push)
But still, given this, it did seem like when I knew what to expect this was a damn effective counter.
1. I think it's pretty easy to add an extra overseer in the build. I have been thinking about it myself, (in the case of early robo builds) to avoid the drop to be detected.
2. About the build you're suggesting as an answer for the protoss, I think it's important to make sure it can also deal with other zerg strats.
In the same sense that a zerg has to produce something dealing correctly with both one base (4gate and later pushes) and two base plays (3gate and fe); protoss has to do something that can deal correctly with both this strat and other main zerg strats of the moment (quick third, burrow roach play, etc.).
Otherwise, imho, you just fix a problem to create another one
hey, im diamond player and i rly wanted to try this BO out after reading Macpo's thread. today i got a protoss in a ladder session and i tried this strategy out the first time and i rly have to say that after playing it, it feels pretty damn nice even though my opponent made a few mistakes ofc, like walling himself out for a few sec while hes getting dropped, but u can see that anyway in the replay
u can tell me what u think - i know the timings weren't perfect and ive missmicroed here and there but as ive mentioned, it was the first time i tried that out
I also find that I can safely end the game with a timing push if they 3gate expand. or at least take out their expansion which leads to them "gg"ing and rage quiting much like the master protoss in my replay above.
I am very open to constructive critiques, but I feel kind of sad when I hear this kind of remarks.
1. because APM is absolutely not the only criteria of success, and it doesn't mean the strategy itself doesn't work (of course, other people would do it better than I do; the only thing I did was to think about it in the first place). I would even add that it's a positive fact that you don't need high APM to do the strat.
2. because the dark force is strong here. What do you intend to do wh'en you are saying "I am bad (Master)"? Beyond an appearance of modesty, I think you actually mean I am better than all of you ("stupid ignorant lower players"). As a Master player, when you are saying that you are bad, you are actually saying others: "you are worse than me, i.e. very bad". I would go even further: you claim to be bad only to enjoy the fact that you are better than others. You sacrifice a bit of yourself, you get a big dirty reward.
By chance, I am a Master player too, so I don't take it personnally; but I still find this kind of remarks very arrogant and unpleasant. Instead, why don't you just go try the build, and bring feedback ?
Otherwise, i am glad to see that platinum guys can kick Master asses when playing aggressive .
very nice strat, i aded some new things in it. 1. u need a spore or an overseer. In my opinion u will need evo anyway (it is quite cheap). gas u ratherspend on ur hydra.
this rule for me came out becouse of my succesful drops and then just loosing to 3-4 DT`s.
2. when u start ur lair, if i see a sentry heavy build+ nexus i imidiatly throw 4 gases (abot 6-7min) and drone hard untill full saturation for main and expo. First goes range atack, then 3-4 hydra to deny any air agression, then sacks, and when they r allmoust done speed. at 10.30-11 with 10-15 hydras i go for drop.
at this point my resources and specialy gas r low. But durring the battle i get 1,5k mines, with no gas (spended on muta) so when mooving to atack i get a macro hatch at my base+third.
(If i go by ground i get a full pare of lings to help hydra`s when they r allmoust there.)
So, i got +2 hatchery`s, but some time protoss just goes with 2 colosus and just kill`s me, becouse i spent so much on muta. that happen`s after a while after harass. So i get a tonn of roaches( forgot to mentione, that i make a roach waren before lair, to defend any 6 gate in time =) )+3-4-5 corruptors and just kill protoses army.
I`m a little hard to understand, so i`ll make a resume =) The main changes in my build r: 1. Roach waren before lair to have a chance to make roaches if neeede ASAP 2. Anti DT`s defens (overseer, or a spore) to defend this damn cheese 3. Make lings in the last second if atacking by ground, so u want waste time wating for hydra to get thee. 4. Make a third+ macro hatch while going for drop\atack 5. Make a ton of roaches after muta, to be able to defend ur base if protos decides to trade bases. There will be realy lot`s of roaches, couse u don`t need to much gase for them and ur mineral count is realy huge since u v satturated ur main and expo with drones. And u might to scwis some corruptors to kill the protos right there.
Thank`s for the buid and timing`s. Grate strat. With early waren i defended most of the pushes even 6 gate.
On April 04 2011 09:26 Darkn3ss wrote: What league are you in? No offense, but under 100 apm in every game, especially for a zerg player, doesn't really convince me... "/
I mean I'm bad (Master), I don't spam early and I get ~130 on average... there's just soooo much stuff to do -.-
APM is not a factor i seen tons of master players even Zergs with APM averages of 50. Seriously thers not much to do. Click Click Click I just spawned larva. 3 Clicks. Click Click DDDDDDD i just made Drones. Theirs this fake aura that zergs have so much to do that makes their APM radically high, thats really not the case.+ Show Spoiler +
Don't take this as an insult, i'm just saying you dont need +100apm to play a Masters Zerg
I think Idra did something very similar to this style against Huk @MLG dallas (the replays are up on MLG's site but I am not sure which of their 6 games this was in, will try to find out later unless someone beats me to it). Idra followed up some zergling harass with hydras, but he only gets overlord speed and creates a quick creep highway to Huk's natural. I don't remember seeing a spire go up and I think huk GGd before the hydra wave was done.
Not getting drop means you save gas for 4 extra hydras, and the creep highway does make it easier to reinforce if you feel that you can win it right away. you guys think thats worth it ?
On April 04 2011 23:15 spacebarbarian wrote: I think Idra did something very similar to this style against Huk @MLG dallas (the replays are up on MLG's site but I am not sure which of their 6 games this was in, will try to find out later unless someone beats me to it). Idra followed up some zergling harass with hydras, but he only gets overlord speed and creates a quick creep highway to Huk's natural. I don't remember seeing a spire go up and I think huk GGd before the hydra wave was done.
Not getting drop means you save gas for 4 extra hydras, and the creep highway does make it easier to reinforce if you feel that you can win it right away. you guys think thats worth it ?
Huk gg'd when the spine crawlers planted right in front of his base. It was Idras classic hydra/spine push and is unrelated to this topic.
interesting ideas that are worth reading. i agree some agression is good but i think its a tad silly you continuously refer to any sort of macro play as some sort of sickness that must be corrected. please keep in mind that this build wont win you every game. this is magnified when you consider things like tournament settings. just because this works does not mean it is the only way to play the game.
After seeing Idra and Machine have quite a bit of ZvP success with Hydralisks before Protoss gets any number of Colossi out at MLG, I'm definitely going to start really going at this in my ZvPs.
Thank you 4 sharing this! ZvP is by far my best Matchup, even be4 this guide was written
1 Question: What do you think about also dropping 2-3 drones to put spinecrawlers in the enemy base? When he has got no coloss, then it might be not so bad?
I have been doing something like this for awhile, but I honestly prefer getting a nydas and think its far better then getting a spire.
You will be able to retreat, and reinforce with stronger fighting units. Not to mention able to nydas in more then one place. The overlord drop allows you to place the nydas.
Pressure early game with roach ling, then tech drops and hydras. Build more roaches if there are allot of zealots, but for the most part just hydra. Lings are the mineral sinker.
Don't forget to drop that overlord creep !
I've had allot of success with this vs forge expands. If they don't forge expand or have enough sentries my roach speedling pressure will put them pretty behind or kill them in close position.
I am very open to constructive critiques, but I feel kind of sad when I hear this kind of remarks.
1. because APM is absolutely not the only criteria of success, and it doesn't mean the strategy itself doesn't work (of course, other people would do it better than I do; the only thing I did was to think about it in the first place). I would even add that it's a positive fact that you don't need high APM to do the strat.
2. because the dark force is strong here. What do you intend to do wh'en you are saying "I am bad (Master)"? Beyond an appearance of modesty, I think you actually mean I am better than all of you ("stupid ignorant lower players"). As a Master player, when you are saying that you are bad, you are actually saying others: "you are worse than me, i.e. very bad". I would go even further: you claim to be bad only to enjoy the fact that you are better than others. You sacrifice a bit of yourself, you get a big dirty reward.
By chance, I am a Master player too, so I don't take it personnally; but I still find this kind of remarks very arrogant and unpleasant. Instead, why don't you just go try the build, and bring feedback ?
Otherwise, i am glad to see that platinum guys can kick Master asses when playing aggressive .
Sorry if I came off as an arrogant prick! xP
I've been browsing forums for a while and you never know who posts what.... this could have been a silver level player posting some nonsense for all I know (no offense). It's always good to give some sort of background so people that read your post know exactly what they're dealing with.
As far as feedback - I'll definitely try this out and let you know how this goes. I've been messing around with a pressure build myself so maybe we can take the pros/cons of both and put them into something a lot better. We'll see ^^
Ive tried this strat and I cant seem to get it right. Could you have a look at the rep please and tell me where I go wrong. Im only a gold player and I have so much trouble v toss.
So, how will this tactic deal with a 4gate again? You're sitting on a half done lair with tons of zerglins that just get OWNED by zealots and your base is being torn apart? I really can't see the significance in this tactic...
I guess you have to be able to scout a 4 gate before going this.
In any case, I am playing this on gold-platinum levels, and it works fantastically. I am finally actually looking forward to play against protoss. On these levels this strategy works even if you get there 1-2 minutes too late.
Funny how protoss seems to get thrown off by this agression. For too long has Zerg been passive :D Thank you Macpo, for making me twice the player I used to be!
I have no experience playing as protoss, but isn't there a possibility to get at least 2 colossus out by 11 minutes with a decent gateway army? 3 Gate robo or 4 Gate robo perhaps? I suppose the early ling push can delay the colossus, but it seems if you scout him going early colossus, it's better to change the hydra drop. It seems that something like what happened in IdrA's game 2 against cruncher where he split his drops as well as combined them with a roach/corrupter push is a good option. To meet the 11m timing perhaps it could be a roach push combined with fewer hydras being dropped.
On April 06 2011 15:59 Terkill wrote: So, how will this tactic deal with a 4gate again? You're sitting on a half done lair with tons of zerglins that just get OWNED by zealots and your base is being torn apart? I really can't see the significance in this tactic...
Sounds like you didn't even read the original post.
"First, make sure you are in the expected situation, i.e. that the toss is not 4 gating"
And, I might add, mass speedling is a great counter to many 4 gate variations.
In this build, you have to know that the guy is NOT four gating to switch to the strat. otherwise you just do some regular defense against 4 gate, with zerglings and roaches.
@ darkn3ss, sorry for misunderstanding your post! no problem, let's forget about this
@nahnah: Hi! First, thanks for submitting a replay!. I am not sure I watch your replay, cause your link doesn't work with me. But I think I found it on the website (are you Itachi in the replay?)
The all point with this replay is that the guy did'nt really expand: it was a fake expand into four gate push... You should go for the zhm strat only once you know the guy is 3gate expanding. (overlord sac if necessary!). Here you didn't see his 4 gate coming, as your scouting is really bad (no poke at the entrance, no use of overlords or of the gas steal drone), and that's what cost you the game, because you just did the strat in an inappropriate situation (you really have to make sure he is 3 gate expanding).
To go into details, here is what I think about what you did. These are just impressions, some more important than others.
- You scout too early. Of course this is a matter of taste, but scouting with your 8th drone (9th not even finished) is too early (unless the guy was playing random). When you arrive at his base, you won't see anything!. I would personnally recommend scouting when you're 13 food. you will arrive before his cybernetic core, you should have time to react to any cheese or 2 gate pressure, you can still steal his gas... when you drone is in his base, why don't you annoy him when he builds his cybernetic core? I think could do that and then steal gas.
Also you have to know that stealing a gas is an incentive for toss to go 4 gate: he lacks gas to make sentries for an expand, and therefore may decide to go four gate. (although this is absolutely not necessary, of course toss can still expand). So if you don't like playing against 4 gate, stealing a gas is maybe not the best solution. (Although I would definitely recommend gas steal, AND practice against 4 gate, as this is the basic problem you want to get rid of when playing zvp; when you know how to deal with it, it's not that difficult to hold off).
- Bumps here and there: for the production of zerglings. you could do them when your pool finishes, but as you're dealing with your gas steal, it takes a while for them being done. (But this is really small details, no big deal).
- Why do you do 3 sets of zerglings (6 zerglings?). This is not absolutely problematic, but I just don't see the interest of 6 zerglings. Two zerglings is generally not enough in ZvP, as you need to scout and kill proxy pylons around your base (+ vision towers, + spotting at his entrance). But 4 is enough in my opinion: 2 for towers, 1 to scout around your base in key locations, where pylons could be, one to poke at his entrance. (important to see core chronoboost and 2nd unit, both of which are important signs of 4 gating.
Also, try to use your zerlings efficiently. I go further in the replay: what are your zerglings doing?? I am really not sure you should scout all over the map to check if he didn't make some weird expand, if there is no reason to think so.Moreover why do they do all the same thing, whereas you could send two to towers, one to the entrance, etc. I know this is a APM intensive, but if you can do that, I guess it's better... Also, you can keep one zergling in your base to prevent further scouting from the toss with probes. Here there is a probe coming in your base, that really should never have come that far. Keep toss in the dark!
- your gas steal is interesting, with the cancel trick especially. Have you ever thought at some point to use the drone to scout again? Cause you let the gas being built, but if you hadn't done that until 5 mn (and I know it can be difficult, for me too) , you could have taken your drone to scout his base and see he was 4 gating.
- More generally, why don't you use your overlord close to his base to scout his 4 gate?? I think this is a big mistake. His building placement wasn't very good, as he had not really hidden his 4th gate. You could have spotted that easily. Then it's easy, you don't go to lair, throw down a roach warren, pump lings, check proxy pylons again, and when roach warren is finished you use the gas to get roaches, and you should be doing really fine.
- At 26 food you have much money. Let's be clear, there is one thing I like, and one I dislike. The thing I like to do is to delay a bit my unit production at this stage while building overlords more than necessary, as it is the moment where you have to make a choice between zerglings and drones. That implies that your money rises a bit at that moment, and this is what you did, and that's fine. YET, the implication of this is to have information to make your decision!! as you don't have any poking zerglings, you absolutely don't know what he is doing. Therefore you're doing some blind zerglings (which is a bad thing). My rule of thumb (mentioned in greater detail in the thread, earlier), is the following: if you see the expand already done, don't do zerglings to harass, that's too late. If you don't see the expand, do a wave of zerglings, it'll help to harass late expand or defend against someone not expanding, but doing some kind of late 1 base attack. OF course, this rule does NOT apply to toss doing 4 gate, as in that case you can just go lings.
- I am at the 7mn mark, and still you have not scouted his natural, and poked at his entrance!! What the hell are you doing?? you need information to take decisions
- Your zergling harassment is terrible . True, zergling harassment is a difficult decision to make at this stage of the game, I also regularly take the bad decision. Yet in this case it was pretty clear that you could not ingage his units. I think your two possibilities were: not attacking when you see what he has ; or trying to go kill the nexus, without really ingaging his units. You would have suffer some losses, but not necessarily too much, and it would have been fine. BUT why do you stop attacking the nexus when it's gonna get killed and attack his units?? you hesitate and do crap. that's really bad for two reasons. 1: because you lose a significant number of units to fight for later. 2. because when attacking, you have shown your opponent what you have. I think it's an important element to hide as much as possible what you have (as protoss is in the dark, between 4mn to 9mn.
- you get slightly supply blocked when he attacks. But this is really a detail, I don't think it would have changed anything. The main problem here is that you didn't scout the 4 gate coming...
On April 06 2011 17:06 ferry wrote: I have no experience playing as protoss, but isn't there a possibility to get at least 2 colossus out by 11 minutes with a decent gateway army? 3 Gate robo or 4 Gate robo perhaps? I suppose the early ling push can delay the colossus, but it seems if you scout him going early colossus, it's better to change the hydra drop. It seems that something like what happened in IdrA's game 2 against cruncher where he split his drops as well as combined them with a roach/corrupter push is a good option. To meet the 11m timing perhaps it could be a roach push combined with fewer hydras being dropped.
I really think you can't have 2 colossi at the 11 mn mark (in the case of fast expands). Most people don't even have one, some have one popping around the time the drop happens, but I really haven't met someone with two colossi yet...
I was thinking about something like this the other day but I was thinking more along the infestor drops with fungals on their workers with a few terrans to polish it off. this will help you also retreat your amy as you fungal a few units in their choke and they cant get to you whilst you move to your ovies for an escape. And with this strat you can also punish a non detection protoss with burrowed instestors with inf. terrans at their nat at the same time also throw in some roaches into the drop to take damage/ block shit up to protect them...
Actually came to me in a dream but my lack of sc time hurts me alot
Yes I was itachi. Thanks alot for the comments i will bear them in mind. I guess there's no need for 3 sets of zerglings and I should definately scout more. I will try again and certainly improve on this!
I like the idea behind this, like "if your opponent is doing or might be doing something you can't deal with, just kill him before he does it".
Likewise I've been opening 5RR in almost all of my ZvP and it works really well (at least at my level - platinium) against most protoss builds : - against forge-expand : depends on the map, most of times roaches can sneak into the main and kill it, or kill the expand, or force to build tons of canons everywhere while I can just stop roach production, double expand and mass drone for a while - against 4 gates : forces the 4 gate to be used for defense, with good micro it allows me to do enough damages to transition to standard midgame with a big advantage - against stargate : roaches can kill all the toss ground army and do significant damage to his economy before the first void ray pop and deal with them instead of going for an attack, wich buy me enough time to get spore crawlers or hydras - against 2gates+robo : I usually get reppelled when immortal pops, and that's actually the only case that give me lots of trouble but I sometimes manage to deal with it by transitionning to speedlings+hydras (and at that points it looks similar to what you're doing)
Being agressive as zerg is good, even if it hurts your early economy you can always catch up quickly by building 10 drones at once whenever you have the opportunity, other races can't do that
What do you think about also dropping 2-3 drones to put spinecrawlers in the enemy base? When he has got no coloss, then it might be not so bad?
Well, I am not sure, but I am afraid spines wouldn't have time to finish... Yet, if this is not the case, if spines can be built on time (during the drop), that could definitely be interesting (and spectacular!), especially in the variations of the build where you built more than 40 drones and have extra minerals to spend! Definitely worth a try. If you have any replay to submit...
Mr. you are a god to me. I was having extreme troubles to win vs toss (i never cheese and play more macro style), but I literaly crashed terran at same level. Just tried this tactics, totaly screwed my build order and was playing terrible, and despite it i won big time.
This was a great thread man, worked like a charm, just like you said. Although something still bothers me. Does your thread imply that the late game deathball is just unbeatable and zerg has no choice but to kill off protoss before getting to late game? And if not, do you have any advice on how to beat the typical colo/vr deathball? I'm really struggling with that.
@Macpo: Why do you suggest to drop this strategy if you anticipate a 4gp? 2 injected hatches pumping ling/hydra crush 4gp. Or is it impossible to get the hydras going this early?
i did this sort of style back in beta, and just died to the rate at which protos made zealots and terran made marines, lead to epic games, my tip are. At leaste 12drones, 16 is like magic number to keep making units, add a few more to get an expo, the issue is setting expo up as serriousley if you didnt u'ld dry out. I give this ago again.
@ Akatsuki: I think dealing with protoss ball is very difficult (have you seen Idra vs Cruncher recently?), requires very good macro, to be successful supposes that you already have an advantage; you often feel that you won only because a specific thing in the game. Thousands of proposals were made on this issue, the latest one was the infestor buff, which soon appeared to be quite useless (go see threads on this!).
So for me the conclusion drawn long ago was: give up any long term strategy with protoss 1. zerg is weak in the beginning (can't really make nice pushes, except very cheesy ones like wzp 3 roach lings push). 2. zerg is weak in the endgame. 3. Therefore it has to strikes in the midgame.I would recommend anyone to do the same, you will feel free again!
I have been looking for tons of roaches compositions and strats, (I had identified that the 11th mn mark is important) and finally switch to hydras. One day by chance I realised that the muta transition was very effective.
@jungeMann : I just feel pretty comfortable vs any 4gate push, when I defend it with roaches and zerglings. Given that you can see most of the time that it is coming, I just don't see any reason to try to go for Hydra ling defense - which is in my opinion a bit more risky, especially against early pushes.
@Fishermang : I have something similar vs terran (i mean an aggressive one and a half base opening with midgame push), maybe some day I 'll do something on this^^ (I find it a bit less convincing, although playable).
Thanks man very insightful. Although realizing this and according to your belief, in your humble opinion, would you say that zerg needs a buff or protoss needs a nerf if that was the case? I mean being weak in earlygame and endgame doesn't seem like a fair fight right? I'm not pushing for any op claims here right now I just want your opinion.
By the way, I am thinking about incorporating queens in my hydra drops, so that they put creep in the protoss base in addition to overlord creep. I didn't play so many games with it so I can't tell, but it seems pretty efficient: even if the toss has some observer, it gives you scout and prevent protoss from rebuilding his base too quick after the drop, plus some marginal advantages like one more tanking unit during the fight... I'll try to post some examples of this later.
EDIT: balance discussion removed we'll keep it to the subject
I really think this is the future of zerg, it's exactly what I've had trouble with as protoss, but rarely refined enough to be a problem. But I think you should have more variety in your army. 10-20% roach/corrupter in your hydra/muta mix seems about right. Some queens instead of roaches might work well if you're doing drops. The roaches help a lot against probes, zealots and cannons while the corrupters are good for their +massive damage and special ability, but you never want to mass either of those units against a protoss.
Haha I see how lucky of you to win 70% mine's the opposite. But balance requires all races to to be on par all throughout the match right? Anyways, incorporating queens seems like a bit of a shaky strat to me. I mean it looks like a bit of an all in-ish strat to me. Are you making more queens for the drop or are you using the original queens you've already made for your hatcheries? If it's the first one couldnt you just spend those minerals on lings? And if its the latter who would inject your hatcheries while you're attacking?
Well the queens don't cost larvae so I would say whether you should build queen/roach/ling is entirely on your larvae supply. But a small number of non-hydra units makes hydra armies much tougher to deal with in my experience.
On April 11 2011 00:02 Akatsuki1012 wrote: Haha I see how lucky of you to win 70% mine's the opposite. But balance requires all races to to be on par all throughout the match right? Anyways, incorporating queens seems like a bit of a shaky strat to me. I mean it looks like a bit of an all in-ish strat to me. Are you making more queens for the drop or are you using the original queens you've already made for your hatcheries? If it's the first one couldnt you just spend those minerals on lings? And if its the latter who would inject your hatcheries while you're attacking?
Be careful, between your signature and one-liners in your posts you sort of are making balance arguments. I would assume if you include Queens for creep spread/transfuse, you would get a couple extra Queens early in place of Zerglings and allow them to accumulate energy while waiting for Hydra/Drop/Speed tech. Seems like an interesting idea, it would just take some testing.
This strategy works wonders. I've been trying to work Hydra drops into my play ever since I saw IdrA demolish Cruncher in the TSL with them on Terminus. Too many Protoss rely on FF and Cannons to protect their FE from early Zerg aggression but Hydras are so good at punishing Gateway/Stargate based armies before Colossi are in play.
The problem was always transition. If I didn't kill them outright I seemed to fall further and further behind since losing a Hydra army is so expensive. The Muta follow-up addresses this very well. I usually prefer the macro-based version that allows me to transition into 3-4 bases in the mid-game while the Protoss is crippled, but it's also nice to have the option of going all-in on close positions or similar situations.
Awesome idea, I Love it. I did Notice that when you attack with the hydra army you start accumulating more minerals than gas. After the mutas are made you then double expand (when you don't go for the kill). It may be a good choice to start making queens as soon as the hydra force pushes out. reasons for the queens 1. they only use minerals and no larva 2. great defense once they get energy 3. you are not using those 150 and sometimes 300 minerals in the muta harass because of the limitation of gas 4. you are going to take more expos, so why wait to make the queens once the expos have finished
anyway, those are my two cents.
by the way, you have awesome macro, the games i watched you kept your resources sooo low.
I was wondering, what does a fast expand count as? I am constantly finding myself unsure what to do when Protoss expands around 7-8 minute mark. If I have during that time been expecting a 4 gate (scouting info seems to confirm this), I obviously can't go with this build from that minute, because my 15 Hydras would pop out at least 2 minutes later, by which time toss has too many colosus for it to be a proper threat?
I've tried this build after some refinement and will say its pretty bad (i was 3500masters on eu ladder last season). Its basically a gimmicky 2base cheese aimed to defeat very bad players. Core problems are :
1. Your 3rd is very late
2. When toss adds robo to his gates after exp he will spot your plan and the chances to do dmg reduce dramatically. You can argue that its possible to go for overseer to snipe the observer but 100 gas investment when you are doing extremly gas heavy timing attack is huge. And on top of that, toss can still predict your drop and expect it after losing the observer
3. The whole drop feels pretty weak. Most of the time you will snipe robo or a gateway before his army gets into you. And unless toss macro'd very very bad he will have more than enough units to stomp hydra ling with decent FF's.
4. The timing after the drop leaves you extremly weak. If toss is good, he wont freak out over some mutas flying in his base, usually what happens is he gets a stalker ball and moves out with 1-3 colosus and kills you because u spent incredible amount of gas drop + hydra + muta tech that cant find gateway/colo ball, and on top of that u have mediocre 2 base economy
Now the good parts, when you can win :
1. Toss went for a weird 3gate expo into stargate tech build, your drop can do a decent damage
2. Toss has terrible macro and simply doesnt have enough gateway units and cant deal with tour drop efficiently
3. Your drop does "ok" and your mutas arrive, but instead of reacting properly toss turtles and chases your mutas for 5 minutes giving you time to saturate your 3rd and get roachball or anything you want really
I love your gameplan Macpo. Call it a build if you will, but I use it as a generally guideline for my ZvP now. My favorite part... It crushes protoss air openings which use to give me so much trouble. Its like... oh, you are FE'ing while fast teching to air?... well I'm just gonna go kill your base now kthx.
I think if you reduce this build to just the hydra drop it can be a very effective all in. I tried it a few times and if you can get the hydra's to drop before or right when the colossus comes out you almost hard counter his army. If the protoss goes air his only chance of surviving is catching your drop before it lands and if he does a 6 gate he will hit your base just when your massing hydra's which deal pretty effectively with a 6 gate.
So I would transform this into a:
2 Base Hydra Drop
The way I tried it was to open no gas double queen and power drones with spines, queens and a few slow lings for defense and then take all 4 gasses at around 30-35 supply. Use the first 100 gas for lair and the second 100 gas for speed. Then when lair finishes get ovie speed and drops and put down a hydra den. When the hydra den finishes start range and mass hydra with all leftover minerals into lings and extra ovies. After 2 rounds of hydras I load everything up and start the drop. From then on I rally speedlings into his base. I usually try to drop close to his ramp so I can catch his army on the ramp and possibly sandwich it with my speedlings that are rallied to his front.
Note that this drop is not to necessarily to damage any infrastructure but to kill his army. The reason why dropping helps with this is that you dictate where the battle takes place because he has to attack you or lose his base. This usually results in a stream of units going up his ramp in (sometimes even in single file) so you can get a good concave on his units. If he zones you with forcefield you can lift the hydra's in the back and drop them on his army. The important thing is to not have any hydra's target buildings while the rest is fighting his army. You want to keep them together and move close to his army. With the great range and dps of the hydra's you should have a far higher dps on his army than he has on you (he is moving up a ramp so half his army is out of range and there will probably be some zealots stuck as well).
I cut drones from about 40 supply and instead make lings and ovies as I find I stockpiled quite a few minerals but I haven't refined it at all so can't give any optimal supply counts.
This build has two major flaws: 1. If they spot your drop his army will be ready to shoot down your overlords. If you have extra ovies you could try to put the empty ones in the front and plow your way through D-day style or you could try to transition out of a failed 2 base hydra drop. I don't know which is messier . To deal with observers you could spread your overlords as normal and keep your army at the front so it isn't as obvious and you could get an overseer but the 100 gas will hurt the drop quite a bit.
2. If they have a colossus out and you can't catch it alone you will get fried. I once managed to snipe his first colossus just when it popped out and it was pretty much an auto-win from then on.
My final build looks something like this: - 13- hatch - 15- pool - Double queen and 4 lings when pool finishes (Put down 1 spine and more if you scout agression) - Keep droning and make another 2 queens when the first set finishes (If he gets agressive make some lings if not keep droning) - At around 35 supply get all 4 gasses (I'm still playing with this and maybe they could go up a little sooner or maybe 1 first and the rest later to start lair sooner) - With the first 100 gas get lair - With the second 100 gas get lingspeed (Cut drone production and switch to lings and extra overlords, not 100% sure about this timing) - When lair finishes start a hydra den, overlord speed and overlord drop - When the hydra den finishes start range and switch to pure hydra production and lings (+ ovies if needed) if you have extra minerals - After two rounds of hydra's drop his main and rally speedlings to his front.
I feel the build can be improved a lot by getting the exact timings for when to get the gasses and when to stop drone production so I'm going to work on that. Also getting an overseer in there if possible would make the build a lot less cheesy and more reliable even if the opponent had an observer.
I choose this opener (the spanishiwa no gas opening) because I feel that if you only crank drones first and then switch to 4 gasses right away you get a more efficient economy with loads of minerals early to get extra drones and more gas later when getting the tech and hydra's. I also like the spinecrawler/queen defense quite a bit. If the 13 hatch gets blocked you can still go 14 gas 14 pool.
Edit: Thinking about it an earlier gas just to get the 100 for a faster lair could really help getting there before the colossus pops so the no gas opening might not be so good after all.
The advantages of the spanishiwa opening are the extra queens which you could actually just drop with your hydra's like suggested above and with the spinecrawlers (and fast lair) some protosses might assume mass muta in which case they might do a warpgate all in to kill you before you can get enough muta's in which case you can destroy him with hydra's for an easy win.
Thanks for your remarks! (especially Abooman and marsupian for their long posts - I would love replays! - that would help me refining the overall stuff).
First I have to say that I am only some kind of average limited Master player (can't exactly remember, but I was around 3400 at the end of season 1, something like that). I would love seeing better zerg players who like aggressive play testing and improving the strat. Julyzerg has done builds that have the same kind of aggressive taste ; yet some of his stuff was different (and it was a kind of improvised one shot strategy apparently), so I would just like to make things a bit more systematic and in my own way.
@Abooman: I'll try to answer your four remarks. Generally speaking, I think you are right on where difficulties are; but I think you slightly overestimate them.
1. Your first remark is about having a late third. I think this really depends on the variation you choose. If you want to go a bit more macro (with 40-45 drones), you basically take your third when hydra dropping (around 11mn mark). I have to say my mechanics are far from perfect, so this is the kind of things I easily forget, but with proper macro, you can definitely take a third at that point (+ a macro hatch, as muta/ling composition for the third wave is kind of larva intensive).
Is that late? well... of course, the overall plan is aggressive, and this implies to take risks, to be low on drones... I personnally like to play with sharp, risky strategies... but it's not necessarily that bad for macro. You can make a round or two of drones while hydra dropping, which will give you more than saturation on two bases...
2. about observers: most of the time, I will not load the hydra and lings in my base: first to avoid observers, second to speed up things a bit ( if you drop tech is late for whatever reason, when you have it and load at the middle of the map, you only have a small distance left before the attack, and not the whole map to cross), . For instance, in xel naga caverns, I like to load my units at the watch tower. of course, it's not the perfect solution, as the toss can still decide to attach his observer to your units... about adding the overseer it's all about your gas timing. If you have your gas timing a bit earlier, you can probably add an extra observer (often, the limitating resource is not gas but mineral).
3. On the drop itself, I would refer to what Marsupian says: you have to drop correctly, and understand what the goal is (no offense here! just to make things clear ). The main idea is that the drop is useful mainly to have your units correctly set up. I originally did a ground push with hydras, but sometimes forcefields just completely stop you, or make half of your army worthless. that's why I came to the conclusion that drop is definitely worth it: you have a smaller army, but it's 100% efficient. the key points for the drop are in my opinion:
- the objective is to kill units (sentries, then stalkers) more than buildings: honestly I feel that if you trade armies, the game is yours. -drop at the choke, do not kill the buildings at the choke, to keep the choke narrow, make a nice concave. - send a couple of zerglings in the mineral line. that's really free damage, it's easy to do, and definitely worth it. - don't hesitate to send your last units back in the overlord, it'll be interesting for multi pronged attacks later.
4. there is a window for a direct counter attack after the drop, if the toss has units left. But two remarks here: 1. toss may have no units left, or not enough to feel that he can push. 2. he may have enough units, but feel he wants to defend. one of these two is often the case in my experience. Also, one important thing at that time is that toss shouldn't know what I am doing, and therefore it is not obvious that he wants to push... (especially if you put creep tumors in his base, I will have to bring his observer back). Moreover, I think you should not underestimate muta ling composition vs stalker colo. Given that his ball is not that big, it can be pretty efficient in my opinion. depending on the situation, you may want to go kill stalkers first (which maybe somewhat counter-intuitive).
@Marsupian:
1. I am really interested in the idea of incorporating Spanishiwa's opening. Of course the question is: will you have time to make the drop at the 11 mn mark? I would definitely love replays, but I 'll try it. But if you go lair tech first, and take four gas pretty early, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.Also the possibility of incorporating queens in the drop is another interesting thing!
2. about gas timing, I have to say that it's kind of hard to have a precise timing, as it depends on the toss timings: I usually send three guys back to gas when I see the toss expand, plus throw down another gas. When lair is finished (I start lair when I see the expand), I throw down the two other gases. (I usually pump drones until lair is finished, but if you want to be greedy I think you can definitely make a round or two more drones when the situation fits). and I feel I am doing fine. But if we switch to spanishiwa opening style, then things maybe a bit different, you may want to have a more precise timing for gas (i.e. absolute timing, not relative to what your opponent is doing).
3. about the observer problem, same as abooman: I chose to load units on the way to his base. I agree that's not perfect, but most of the time, it'll do... One thing to keep in mind is that an observer means a robotic bay, and this make things easier for the drop (in my opinion) than a six gate...
4. I am pretty sad that you give up the muta part, which is in my opinion an efficient transition. Maybe a rule of thumb would be: if 3 gate robo, then hydra drop followed by mutas (against colossi, it fits great); but if 6 gate, then just pump hydras and expand. (I would say though, that six gate generally leads to later colossi, so I would still switch to mutas at some point; just delay the overall strat: bigger hydra drop at around 12:30 13 mn; followed by mutas.
I removed the mutas, put a nydus worm and made it more all-insh.
This was my first try with that variation: maybe I can try to squeeze a +1 atack (range) to make it even better against this kind of 2 base protoss play.
I am in platinum though, so it might take some time for me to have a build solid enough for players like you, but I really like this use of Nydus :D
This is really good love the idea im a noob in bronze but about gold lvl of play and im tired of 1 match of being promoted after a 8 or 9 win streak only to vs a high silver who "just found out" wtf a death ball is and quickly roflstomps me. Is it possible to switch the hydras 2 possibly baneling carpet bombs on themineral lines? possibly an idea but im just a nubby bronze -.-
After allot of games with this, it seems to be just a gimmicky win. Something to ladder with for easier wins. It wont have such a high win ratio in higher leagues.
Instead of the spire I prefer to get a Nydas behind my drop. It allows for even more prong attacks, as well as faster reinforcements and retreats.
Sorry for bumping, but I thought this looked good.
Is this build still viable?
I have been looking for an agressive ZvP build, I was wondering if anyone had any success with this one lately? It seems good, but I'm not so sure it works that well, any pointers?
I concur. I've recently switched to Zerg from Terran and have been experimenting with aggressive builds as well, and would like to know if this is still good to go. Already dropped out of Master league from my shenanigans and wouldn't want to dip down further >_>
1. . this was written some time ago, essentially to deal with 3 gate robo, when it was the main bo for protoss So I wouldn't recommend it against FFE, although i made a second version of the strat, which would suit it better.
2. When I first discovered it (trying hydra drops, and then randomly making a spire) it happened to be really efficient at my level (around high diamond low master). I have had like a 65/70% win rate for a couple of months in z v p. So, I have been playing it a lot, now changed a bit cause I was tired of it but overall:
it's kind of exposed to early pressure, especially mass blink stalker. against six gate, you can defend, but putting pressure back is kind of hard... in some situations you have to transition out of it (like zealot archon). At the same time, with the element of surprise, it also often works pretty well, even against relatively high master players in certain configurations.
By now I use it here and there to remember the good old days, it's really efficient when you scout stargate openings (if you go like 4 gas at 40, and lair around 6:30, you can adapt and go for it, and it is really efficient); it can do the work in bo3, especially if you got some close air position; also it's worth a try when you are playing against someone better than you, cause it gives you a chance where otherwise you wouldn't have.
So to conclude, I don't know if it gives you a winning percentage over 50, especially as protoss improved harass defense. I would be tempted to say, yes up to low master (as you put a lot of pressure), then probably it goes down. Then, it's probably not the best way to go as a main strat today, as it has a very specific path, quite low macro, etc. (although it teaches timings pretty well); True, it is somewhat specific and gimmicky (let's make it clear: it's not a six pool rush or a seven roach push!),but quite funny to play, if you like leading the game, and being the one with the initiative; and enjoy risky tense situations, with quite a lot of multitasking, base trade, etc.. and who knows, maybe someone will adapt it and make it better
Just remember that you shouldn't resort on builds that rely on your opponent not being good to work because at higher levels you will have trouble and a LOT of frustration from the fact that your standard builds aren't winning you easy games anymore. gl hf
well you always somehow rely on your opponent being bad
+ playing this kind of build, doesn't mean you don't improve at all, actually it makes you practice many things + you may wanna play not to improve, but to have fun for instance... + not everybody aims at becoming high master (as a realistic target).
It makes me think about chess: in chess, you have certain strategies that are considered to be not as good as main ones, but which are still practiced by many good players, because they lead to paths the other player doesn't know, and therefore often end up giving you an advantage: the other player plays "out of the book", on his own. It's a way to say: "let me see if you know how to play by yourself, without learnt-by-heart guides".
But let me make some off topic remark that I have been willing to make for a pretty long time. I often remarked that SC2 community (no offense to previous poster here), probably because sc2 is a new game, is not interested about what is not considered the best right here right now, as opposed to chess. Against this, I would defend the idea that many strats, even though not working, being old fashioned or too gimmicky, are of great interest to understand the game, and may often lead to new ideas; and instead of shutting them down, we should welcome them with curiosity. That would be having a sc2 culture.
Baneling bust, for instance, is not working in z v t early game. Yet, if your opponent goes double port banshee, it is something you may want to consider as a counter attack. But of course, if you don't know about baneling bust, because it's "all-in gimmicky", etc. then you don't do it.
there should be replays in this post against FFE. (a bit old though). and have a look at them before you say you don't like it the thing is I don't pretend to be a very good sc2 player, so I think some player with better skills would play it better than I do
I don't like it. because from where I stand, every protoss that has an hole in the ass is still colosuss sentric. & i don't need to try it out, to know that this strategy would fall horibly to an two-base colosus timeing (not even an all-in)
EPT
and it seems to blind counter a lot of the gimmicky stuff that is so popular on NA ladder (especially in platinum league).
