An aggressive path in ZvP 2.0 (how I stopped seeing pink toss deathballs in my dreams...)
This is about a 2base hydra drop into 4 base mass muta, in ZvP. Here mutas attacking just after the initial hydra drop.
I recently posted a ZvP strat called "an aggressive path in ZvP", which presents some kind of hydra/muta play in ZvP in order to avoid the usual roach/corruptors/expand usual ZvPs.
I had some comments on it, some of them very fruitful, sometimes critical (in the good sense); which helped me to refine the build, and make it more solid. Some critiques were a bit more radical; and even though I denied it strongly at the time , I felt that somehow they were right. There were some kind of inherent limits to the build that made it weak to a variety of things.
So, I was about to give up the whole thing, when some guy suggested me to use Spanishiwa's opening to strengthen my stuff. After some work of adaptation, I think I have come up with quite convincing results, which I would like to share. To clarify things and avoid useless remarks, I am an average master who wins against high masters in ZvP (and lose all his ZvT, but that's another story). I don't aim at teaching super pros how to play sc2; just want to suggest a strat with which I have had some success. I have never tested the build against grand masters.
To sum up, the general architecture is still the same as in my "aggressive path" 1.0 , i.e. hydra drop planed for the 11/12 mn mark, followed by muta harass; still no roach, no corruptor; but this version is way stronger economically. This modifies quite a lot the build, which is now a two base hydra drop into 4 base mass muta. New aspects emerge (like queen drops, massive spine defense and double expand during the hydra drop); some disappear (early zergling pressure). Overall, I would still label it an aggressive build, as from the 11 mn mark you shouldn't stop attacking. It has become a bit more APM intensive, due to more expands, but I am no high APM guy, and still make it work reasonably.
Let's now get into the details.
1.Main variation. (vs 3 gate exp into colossi).
1. 1 A new hope: Spanishiwa: The Ice Fisher is on fire!
So for the first steps of the build, I follow Spanishiwa's stuff. Yet, I made some modification as I rather go 11 pool 18 hatch. I have been doing some kind of 16 hatch 15 pool strat. and when it works, it's really nice. But at the same time, you have too much pylon block, cannon rush and so on. If you feel comfortable with 16 hatch, go for it, but I would rather recommend a 11 pool 18 hatch, like this.
Eleven pool into 18 hatch on Shakuras. Zerglings just killed the probe. Protoss is going to be in the dark for a while.
-11 pool (with extractor trick)
-@100% pool 2 zerglings and queen.
use the two zerglings to chase the probe away. and throw down a hatch just thereafter (timing should be fine). One very good thing is that from there the protoss will be in the dark, until the moment he pushes or has an observer. Some people may also overreact to 11 pool, which is also a good thing. After, go scout with the zerglings. If you see any pylon around, make 4 more zerglings immediately, if necessary with extractor trick.
-@ 100% queen, make another queen. -@50% hatch, make a spine in your main (you will transfer it to your natural when it pops up). @100% hatch, make a queen in your natural.
From here, you come back to Spanishiwa's stuff. Put down spines, according to what you have scouted so far (at least 2 more, against 3 gate expand). For 4 gate defense, go see his stuff. I like having my gases a bit before what he suggests. So rather than "at 40 make four gases", I would say "between 36 and 40", make four gases. But that's a small difference... Also: - Make queens. Don't hesitate to have 5 or 6, they will be used during the drop; it makes things easier against air harass, etc. - Remember that creep spreading is pretty useless in this build, beyond the initial creep tumor from your main to your natural. maybe saving energy for the drop and/or defense is more interesting…
When you started lair, go on with drones production, you can add a fourth, or fifth spine depending on what you scout. If you don't scout anything, make a fourth spine. Don't hesitate to oversaturate a bit your mineral line with drones, as you will put down spines later anyway.
Also, block the bottom of your ramp with two queens. That's a safety against ultra fast DT: if you don't have overseer, you can still block DTs at your ramp with transfusing queens, until overseer eventually pops up. I advise not to block the top or the middle of your ramp, as a force field would lock your two queens in your main.
then, @100 extra gas, go for speedling (classical spanishiwa, but you can do it later! the only thing is to have it ready for the tenth minut mark).
@ 100% lair, put down the hydra den, overlord tech (the tech to carry stuff first as it's longer), and stop making drones. make overlords to have around 100/110 food, and keep all the rest of your money.
At 100% lair, also get an overseer. This is mainly for defensive purposes (although you may want to add it to the drop later): scouting observers, and countering DTs (for details about that, go to part 2.)
@100% hydra den, get hydra range. produce hydras, and with leftover minerals, make queens and/or zerglings. for the drop, you should have around 15 hydras (it can be 12, it may be 18…), around 4 queens, (maybe 3 maybe 5 or 6), and some zerglings (between 8 and 20 I guess). I can't give precise figures, as this will depend on your mineral / gas ratio, i.e. your gas exact timings, your number of spines, etc. Overall I guess you should have around 7 or 8 full overlords.
Generally, you will be waiting for the overlord tech. While waiting for it and pumping units, last things to do before the drop:
- make overseer circles around your base to catch any observer. remember, if you get an observer, that means he is 99% sure going for colossus, so it should be fine, but don't drop too late. In some variations, the timing is a bit less important, but when colossi are coming, you should not be messing things up. - gather all units and make control groups. It is very useful to make three control groups cause it'll make things much easier to micro during the drop. one for hydras, one for queens, one for zerglings. Remember that drops are usually quite messy, you don't see units well because of overlords, and it's hectic to target fire, send a small group on the probes, and transfuse at the same time, while macroing, expanding, etc. - You may want to include all your queens in the drop, while making sure some are being produced when you leave, so that you are not completely larva broken for mutas. - make sure your overlords spread creep. - When you send your loaded overlords, avoid watch towers or make sure you have them. It happened to me to be scouted like that on shakuras, and it's really stupid. - If toss seems to push with gateway units when you are on your way, I would recommend to not retreat, as it will waste your timing completely. Pray, take emergency measures, make some additional hydras. In the worst case, you should be trading bases.
1.2.1 The to-do list when hydras are on the way. all these things are pretty crucial, don't forget them! you should have a lot of mineral. So:
- make your spire. - expand. Generally, I double expand. i.e. I select six drones, and build 2 hatchs and 4 gases. -spines: add 3 or 4 spines in your main. (so that you have between 7 and 10). -make sure you have queens injecting. -if so, you can make a round of drones. (just make sure to have enough larvae for 10/15 mutas.) (I don't claim this part to be very original, just summing up things to have in mind when doing a hydra queen drop.)
1.2.2 How to make an hydra drop. A good hydra drop may well win you the game. But it also helps to buy time, and this is absolutely crucial. This is why a bad hydra drop won't completely lose you the game, if it keeps the toss for a while on a defensive position. you may not kill all his units, not destroy any key building. You'll be doing fine if you don't get completely smashed: as you will get time to make your expands running and protect them.
how to drop: I would recommend a simple D left click from far, when you start moving your loaded overlords. so that the overlords naturally spread. Overall, I think it's better than a trendy drop while moving, which will make you gain one sec maximum and exposes you to utter failure (not dropping, dropping half of your units, that kind of stuff). But if you feel completely confident with this and want to have higher APM…
Where to drop? I am still wondering about this. A drop on the main nexus, followed by some creep tumor block (the zerg pylon block!).
In the beginning, I was dropping close to the choke. The interest is that you can catch toss units in a narrow path, with ideally a nice concave. yet, sometimes your hydra random fire gateways instead of fighting and it's really frustrating + if one colossus is already here, it will use the cliff. At the same time, if you drop at the choke and send zerglings in the mineral line, it works a bit as a double attack, as the toss has to pay attention to two things at once. I have been trying to drop on the mineral line in the main, and feel it's a bit more efficient, as you can kill the nexus pretty quickly, and with some creep tumors delay its construction for a while (for ever if he doesn't have robo). Yet, if his army is a but superior to yours, there is a risk that you get raped, which doesn't happen that much with the chock drop. In addition to this, the choice for the drop location will depend on the access you have to the position. In some cases, it's easier to drop on the main mineral line (Shakuras), in others, you will more easily drop on the choke(xel naga caverns). What to do when dropping? - put creep with overlords. - good hydra positioning and targeting. - queen transfuse and creep tumors. - around 6-8 zerglings on probes - overseer block (optional - I don't do it much, as it potentially weakens your defense).
A bad hydra drop looks like that (you can admire my very personal style):
A good hydra drop looks like this: 1.drop at the choke. make sure units fire precise target (it’s the main reason for a failed drop. It's essential to have some key building to target, and not only random gateways. (cybernetic core is particularly interesting, as mutas are coming.
2. The first seconds may be used to destroy the key building; but as soon as units are coming, make sure to have a good concave. It's better when queens tank damage in the front. Transfuse as much as you can, you may gain something like 5 seconds free from real damage to your army, which is huge. Tumors are to scout, provoke observers prevent buildings on the area, and fun
3.Retreat when nothing can be done anymore! the rests of your hydra drop (if any) will be useful for multi pronged attacks later. don't try to escape when you can't though.
1.2.3 Backing or not backing. Why it's not a big deal NOT to drop? or slightly failing a drop? As I said, an important aspect of the drop is that it buys you time. So even though you fail a bit your drop, even though he is expecting you and therefore you can't unload, you may well be fine. Just try to keep stuff in your overlords, so that you maintain the threat (and prevent him from moving). As Nimzovitch says, the threat is stronger than the execution. This is also why I would strongly recommend backing in the overlords if you feel he has a bigger army (I have to admit I sometimes fail to do that). That'll make him stay in his base while your mutas are coming.
1.3 The return of the Jedi. (or why our dear old Mutas still rock in zvp).
1.3.1 The Muta. (not mutas, or some mutas, but The Muta) + Show Spoiler +
When you leave your base with hydras for the second wave, you should build a spire. When the spire is finished, just make as much mutas as you can. Make sure you have enough larva for that (i.e. not forgetting all your injects). Upgrading mutas is of course a good idea, after your made your first wave. I still don't know which is better, attack or defense, I guess that as you are harassing, you are not suppose to engage, and therefore defense is a bit useless. (but of course this is true only in the ideal world). don't hesitate to make several attacks at once, this is so efficient! you can do: zergling drops, multiple muta groups and rests of hydra drops. If your opponent doesn't split his army, you can harass forever. If he does split his army in small groups; gather your mutas and kill one of his smaller groups.
42 mutas on a bunch of gateway units.
1.3.2 Structure of late game: mutas, macro and spines + Show Spoiler +
Don't forget to send drones in your gases, when your two expands finish.
You should be doing three crucial things(beyond obvious stuff like injects): make mutas, possibly some zerglings for drops - make spines - make drones. The difficulty is to find the equilibrium of these three things. Now this is obvious but if you fail there is a risk : to be broken in mineral or larvae when planning to produce a new wave of mutas; to run out of drones, because you made too many spines; or to lack spines when you are under attack.
One new aspect of "an aggressive path" 2.0 is spines: a few remarks about mass spines. First, I recommend that you really make mass spines; by that I mean as much as you can: I guess figures would be around 6 or 7 in your natural when you leave for the hydra drop; 5 more in your natural and 5 more in your third when you go for the first muta harass, and so on (I guess it can go up to 30 or more sometimes). Second, the interest of spines, is that it doesn't take food.
Food counts are around equal; but you have numerous spines.
At some point, the protoss will try to push with all he has. Sometimes it's when he feels the game is being lost; sometimes he is just trying to put some pressure. In this case, don't hesitate to trade bases. You may lose if you absolutely want to avoid base trades. You have four, and he very likely has 2 or 3 max so it will be fine (and you can bring your mutas back pretty quickly, if absolutely necessary). A protoss counter. You'll often have to trade bases, but that's fine! Also at some point, (when you have spines on your 3rd and 4th), drop a evo chamber and some spore crawlers, just in case he goes for late DTs.
2. Dealing with other protoss builds: variations on the build. + Show Spoiler +
One interesting aspect of the build is that it works against almost all protoss strategies whatsoever. It's not a tree like "if this, then that", where you switch to something completely different. You only have to make minor adjustments against most builds, but you don't have to change the overall plan.
2.1Forge fast expand.
Be careful about cheese. put spines later. Be ready for air harass. that's it...
2.2 Four gate push.
Scout it in time and put down spines. To be honest, I still have hard time identifying a four gate push correctly, as I switched to Spanishiwa's stuff recently. and this is where I lose most of my ZvP still. when you hold it off, just do the usual stuff; absolute timings will not be respected, but if you have followed correctly the relative timings (when this, then that) it should be fine)
2.3 One base tech push with ground. (void ray/colossi/immortal)
with spines and queens, I guess it should be fine… if you see that nothing happens for too long (past 6:30 7:00 in the game) and that he is still on one base, then just make some extra defense. Plus make sure to have two queens blocking your ramp, as it may well be DTs.
2.4 Other pressure builds (DT and two bases air pressure):
The essential tool is queen. Against air of course, but against DT also, to block the ramp, while getting an overseer. Against DT: You should always block your ramp with two queens. I recommend to block it down the ramp, as otherwise force fields may block your queens on the high ground in case of push.
2.5 6 gate.
The hints for a 6 gate strat are :gateways in front of his natural, no observer killed, large amounts of gateway units, a will to pressure(especially at around 10 mn mark). in the case of six gate, you can definitely delay the drop by one minut, one minut and a half.
the longer the distance and the shorter the air distance, the better.
3.2 Where do I lose?
- early cannon cheese. I hope to have fixed that with my switch from 16hatch 15 pool to 11 pool 18 hatch. - misscouted 4 gate: Sometimes you just miss it, and feel reluctant to sacrifice and overlord for nothing… - completely failed hydra drop: as I explained early: do not let your hydra zergling random firing on gateways or stuff like that! have a look at replays
3.3 Replays :
On these replays, you won't always see what I said, as I progressively establish the rules I follow by now. especially, most of the replays are 16hatch 15 pool. Some are 11 pool 18 hatch though… past the first 5 minuts, it doesn't change much.
i dont understand why you want to drop hydras - ling or ling/bling drops is way faster and takes far less investments and usually the longer you wait the more difficult those drops will become
im not saying this build is a bad idea but you have to do a lot of damage for that huge investments and every worker pull will make it a waste of resources unless the protoss has no army to deal with hydras but then mutas will be obsolete anyways
Also not understanding the choice of hydras. They're not good against anything. Only time I tech to them is when I need anti-air faster than I can get mutas out.
Even ignoring their lack of hp, etc. they do just average dps per resource spent.
1. About banelings, I have to say I am a bit skeptical, as 1. you can't target buildings 2. there are forcefields on the other side 3 it's a kind of all-inish-risky-pray-that-he-won't-remove-his-drones-before-you-drop stuff.
2. why hydras? in a very specific timing (i.e. just before colossi basically) it's pretty good. better than roaches, as it has a longer range (deals better with force fields); more dps; it basically rapes gateway units; and it's universal: in case there are immortals or air, then no problem. Basically the idea of the drop is not to do some tricky "surprise surprise" by air. It's just a way to make an hydra push with a way better positioning than you would do without drop. (I would recommend that you go see Idra vs Cruncher in TSL (game 2) to understand the interest of hydra drops.
Just to add to Macpo, hydras have a range advantage over roaches which is very important when you can't get a concave (i.e. in drop scenarios where there are buildings all around you).
Not to mention that hydras can take out a nexus, pylons, etc much faster than roaches.
And finally, hydras will be great against any immortals or void rays which could wreck your day with roaches.
Roach drops are obviously effective and all. Try it both ways and see which one you like.
This is way more solid then your first thread. I tried experimenting this build with spanishiwa's opening as well, but couldn't get the timings right, So thanks The queens and spines will easily defend a 4 gate which I used to lose to so much. I hope more players will start doin this
Edit: for those not understanding why use hydras for drops, here is a small history for the build Hydras are good against anything but colossus, so this build was originally a 10 minute ling/hydra bust which abused the timing where colossus is not out yet. The range of the hydras negate most forcefields. It worked well but had trouble in chokes. So, someone found outthat researching overlord speed and drops were a good addition to this and wouldn't delay the overall attack. And now we have the hydra drop. But, the early game of this is quite weak, so someone decided to try this with the spanishiwa opener, and between queens and spines, nothing seemed to be able to break the defenses. And thus, this became he build today, and it still hits at a timing before the collosus
tl;dr hydras are good at anything but colossus. Hit them with hydras before colossus.
On May 04 2011 06:35 greycubed wrote: Also not understanding the choice of hydras. They're not good against anything. Only time I tech to them is when I need anti-air faster than I can get mutas out.
Even ignoring their lack of hp, etc. they do just average dps per resource spent.
They beat zealots as long as you can get it a nice position, for example, behind the mineral line where zealots cannot charge it all at once.
If zealots are all able to charge it at once, they can beat the hydras.
However, if you distract him and drop hydras behind his mineral line, the hydras can demolish the mineral line surprisingly fast.
1. About banelings, I have to say I am a bit skeptical, as 1. you can't target buildings 2. there are forcefields on the other side 3 it's a kind of all-inish-risky-pray-that-he-won't-remove-his-drones-before-you-drop stuff.
2. why hydras? in a very specific timing (i.e. just before colossi basically) it's pretty good. better than roaches, as it has a longer range (deals better with force fields); more dps; it basically rapes gateway units; and it's universal: in case there are immortals or air, then no problem. Basically the idea of the drop is not to do some tricky "surprise surprise" by air. It's just a way to make an hydra push with a way better positioning than you would do without drop. (I would recommend that you go see Idra vs Cruncher in TSL (game 2) to understand the interest of hydra drops.
you always have the risk of protoss moving probes away and hydras might have range but they are also slow as hell so you wont be able to chase them
a good drop also happens simultaneously meaning that you distract on one side while the real drop comes to the other base as soon as you got attention and the protoss army moves to your fake drop
Wow, i dont mean to be rude. But someone of your skill level (maybe) should not post a guide. *edit* After rereading my own post it feels a little bit too rude, what i didnt want it to be, so this is the update:
You build like 40 spine crawlers. Your opponent did not get a single upgrade in 30 minutes (not even blink). And still he was winning every fight and was 80 supply ahead. He gave his victory away because he ran into 25 spine crawlers with his stalkers first and his zealots blocked behind. This game was terribly played.
After that i watched another random replay you posted. Once again your opponent was very bad. The protoss player had 40 supply after 8 minutes, less than 30 probes. He was on 80 supply after 12 minutes. And your drop was killed !!!. A skilled toss player would have like twice the army and just slaughter you right there since your hydra drop is way too late to deal any real damage.
You fall behind in eco compared to almost every zerg build while there is no hint on WHY you do it that way. You even build a spinecrawler when your opponent does not have any units.
You should take more time to refine your build and analyze replays. Since some of your replays were played against very bad protoss players, you should try to find a good player, to try your build against him. You should always check pro replays and watch the supply count at different time marks, like 7 minutes, 10 minutes 12 minutes. Compare those supply counts (and tech levels) to your actual opponent. Is he very far behind ? No: The replay is good to analyze your play. Yes: If you did not harass him to create this situation, throw the replay away, it wont help you. If you can win a game with 2000 floating minerals before you are at 200 supply and full upgrades, your opponent was either really bad, or you found a build which is incredibly imbalanced (and i bet, this will never be the case).
*edit2* Since i was quoted and insulted while i was editing my post: I dont want to bash people, and i am well aware of how much afford was put into the OP, this might improve the post, but it does not improve the build. I get the idea behind that build, but an idea does not win the game. The build is just not solid in so many ways, falling behind in eco is one of those as mentioned in my post.
Wow, i dont mean to be rude. But someone of your skill level (maybe) should not post a guide.
You build like 40 spine crawlers (thats no joke guys, watch the replay). Your opponent did not get a single upgrade in 30 minutes (not even blink). And still he was winning every fight and was 80 supply ahead. He gave his victory away because he ran into 25 spine crawlers with his stalkers first and his zealots blocked behind. This game was terribly played.
After that i watched another random replay you posted. Once again your opponent was very bad. The protoss player had 40 supply after 8 minutes, less than 30 probes. He was on 80 supply after 12 minutes. And your drop was killed !!!. A skilled toss player would have like twice the army and just slaughter you right there.
This guide shows how to fall behind in eco, build 40 spinecrawlers and drop hydras about 3 minutes too late to deal any damage while following up with mutas and getting 1/0 upgrades on a 30 minute game.
The best proof that there was more afford put into the post than into the buildorder itself is: You fall behind in eco compared to almost any other zerg build while there is no hint on WHY you do it that way. You even build a spinecrawler when your opponent does not have any units.
I dont even know what to say about this. You definately dont come on tl to learn new ways to play but to tell people to shut up. The point of threads is so you can get your own ideas on how things should be. I am pretty sure you were drunk while writing this because if you werent then you have missed a lot in the young starcraft 2 history.
So let me explain to you what this thread was originally all about: _hydra drops pwn _mutas pwn
Why do hydra drops pwn u say? Idra used these in some games and won. This says a lot because idra is known to play only macro. Second, hydras only weaknesses is they have low hp and are slow. Drops give your hydras creep to walk on and the ability to fly like butterflys. This means you only have the weakness of low hp. If you engage with concave AND on a ramp, you negate this weakness so hydras become the best anti gateway stargate and immortal unit you can wish for.
Why do mutas pwn? If its not obvious to you i can 99% guarantee u lived under a rock. i wont say what the 1% is or i might get banned for good.
Why hydra drop first? Read thread. He says it a couple of times.
Why transition to muta? Because you can and mutas pwn hard and are the most annoying unit to deal with in high numbers.
Why blind spines? Hes ice fishing. If you dont know how ice fishing works then it proves you have been living under a rock. Since you defend with only queens and spines you make enough against whatever you scouted for.
So before you post in a thread be sure not to be drunk and have thought about the IDEA first and not the replays. Creativity takes priority not who you play. I simply cant stand you for saying these cruel things about the op. He put too much effort into this to get yelled at. Besides its not your task to tell people what they can or cant do on tl forums. You are not a tl mod are you?
User was temp banned from Strategy Forum for this post
Going hydras into mutas is not really good gas management. You will probably not get enough to get like 10 mutas directly and they will just dont do any damage. He will probably go blink after he sees the spire if he have good scouting.
I watched the 2 6 gate games you won, and both where far off from the protos to many significant misstakes to list them.
@ JustAgame: I have to say I am a bit tired of remarks like that. I am obviously not the greatest grand master of all times and don't mean to be so. Then the question is: am I still allowed to say something or should I shut up and listen religiously to those "who know" (but still don't agree between themselves)? Should we create another forum for average crappy players like me, where we can speak freely ?
I propose this strat as I have remarkable success with it over the past few weeks and months. Protoss players I play against are not crappy bronze players, there are master players I got paired with in ladder (or sometimes tournaments). Obviously there are not grandmaster either, but they are playing reasonably well. I have been working on this for a while; it's not a one night random idea. I would be very happy to see someone better than me taking the strat to improve it or at least play it more precisely. I would also be happy to practice it with some good protoss interested in it!
For sure, you will always find some mistakes in the execution of the strat. but I feel that remarks like "the guy forgot his upgrade, his strat sucks" is not very productive, because in the end, you absolutely never consider the strat; you criticize the gameplay (fair enough), macro or micro whatever, but not the strat itself. I would recommend that you try it for a couple of games, just to get used to it; and then tell me what you think about it!
Having said that (sorry to bother people with that kind of discussion): 1. I don't think I fall behind in economy with this build. This was true in my previous post, but as I open Spanishiwa, I feel I have a really decent economy. Moreover, I have pretty quickly more bases than he has. It may have happened on some game, but overall it's not necessarily implied by the strat.
2. I am sometimes behind in supply count, as I make spines; but this does not necessarily mean I am behind overall.
3. What's wrong with spines? when you make mass mutas, the alternative to spines is speedlings. Yet, speedlings will cost you a lot of larvae, therefore putting you behind in economy. speedlings will cost you food, and you'll be max much sooner (imagine, when I have 40 spines, as you said, the zergling equivalent could not even be reached). The idea of spines is that it makes base trading more difficult for toss. It is somewhat unusual, but it works for me!
@grasseater: going hydras into mutas is absolutely the core of the strat, and it really makes wonders: 1. because toss will make colossi when he sees hydras, and mutas own colossi 2. because it allows you to maintain constant pressure 3. because there is no gas managment problem. basically, if you make a spire when you leave with hydra/queen drop; you will have between 10 and 15 mutas when it pops up. 4. scouting is easier said than done, as I have an overseer and should be able to kill observers pretty easily.
Could everyone PLEASE stop saying hydras do good dps and demolish gateway units? It's SO wrong.
dps per cost:
zergling: 28.74 roach: 8.00 hydra: 9.64
yes, lings cost more larva, but they only use minerals.
Roaches won't bankrupt you on larva though. And they save you a lot of gas. And they're fast. And they don't get one-shot. And you can research burrow-move.
On May 04 2011 18:09 greycubed wrote: Could everyone PLEASE stop saying hydras do good dps and demolish gateway units? It's SO wrong.
dps per cost:
zergling: 28.74 roach: 8.00 hydra: 9.64
yes, lings cost more larva, but they only use minerals.
Roaches won't bankrupt you on larva though. And they save you a lot of gas. And they're fast. And they don't get one-shot. And you can research burrow-move.
Edit: also I didn't watch your replay, but generally I agree with you about spine crawlers. I think they're underused.
You are completely neglecting the effect of range on dps. Lings do a lot of damage if they can connect. Forcefields and buildings get in the way however. Same with roaches.
Obviously roach drops can be effective. It's silly to say they're clearly better than hydra however.
Rate of fire is also "neglected" in my post but important as it avoids overkill. However neither are significant enough to favor hydra over roach in anything but an "oh shit I needed anti-air 5 minutes ago" scenario. If you're that concerned about forcefields get burrow move.
I had great success with your first version of this aggressive path, and have been in love with ice fisher build recently, so mixing the two together is very interesting. Thank you very much for the strategy, this will be fun to try out! I also like the idea of spine crawlers, mostly because they are a fighting and moving unit which doesn't cost supply.
It might be (and by might be I mean it probably is) a bit gymicky, but to aid your drop, how about adding in a few changelings to help block the entrance to the main before you actually drop or at the same time? See as you have to target fire them, they could buy you some time to make the Hydra Drops better. My other question is whether I want to try to keep my hydras alive after they do their initial damage (see as it aids me in having a food advantage and Day [9] said in a daily that you should keep drop units alive) or do I want to let them die and replace the supply with mutas?
@Kaminoan : your changeling suggestion is kind of APM intensive; but it may well be very funny to see I'll try it some day. About sending back hydras in the overlords, two things: 1. you really want to trade armies with the protoss. So if armies are around equal, I would recommend to go on fighting. 2. Now, when your drop is over, you just have like 4 hydras while he has 10 stalkers or zealots, I would definitely send back the hydras in the overlord. The reason being that it will be very useful for later harassment: for instance, when your muta wave is coming, you can send it on the second base, while dropping with hydra leftovers in the main.
@greycubed: I am not sure you can actually adapt like this and make zerglings. because 1. you have to scout the immortal or the void ray; and this is so obvious (especially for the immortal) 2. I don't think you will have enough larvae to make mass zerglings between the moment you actually scout toss and the moment you have to drop. Then overall roaches speedling drops can be effective I guess, it's just that I feel more confortable with hydras!
On May 04 2011 18:34 greycubed wrote: Rate of fire is also "neglected" in my post but important as it avoids overkill. However neither are significant enough to favor hydra over roach in anything but an "oh shit I needed anti-air 5 minutes ago" scenario. If you're that concerned about forcefields get burrow move.
How can you ignore rate of fire? Doesn't that directly affect dps?
On May 04 2011 18:34 greycubed wrote: Rate of fire is also "neglected" in my post but important as it avoids overkill. However neither are significant enough to favor hydra over roach in anything but an "oh shit I needed anti-air 5 minutes ago" scenario. If you're that concerned about forcefields get burrow move.
How can you ignore rate of fire? Doesn't that directly affect dps?
He means overkill effects.
For instance, is it better to do 1 damage per second or 60 damage at the end of a minute? Obviously 1 damage per second because if you're hitting an enemy with 5 life, you'd be wasting 55 damage with the slow powerful attack.
Roaches do more damage than hydras but they have less attack speed so they are more prone to "wasting" damage.
On May 04 2011 20:50 Mithrandir wrote: For instance, is it better to do 1 damage per second or 60 damage at the end of a minute? Obviously 1 damage per second because if you're hitting an enemy with 5 life, you'd be wasting 55 damage with the slow powerful attack.
OTOH a high rate of fire suffers proportionally from armor.
This looks pretty good on the surface. I checked out the replays from the original topic, but have yet to check these ones. However I can gain enough of a prospective from reading and the SS's (very nice work adding the screenies, btw) to know that it can be highly effective.
Also, Creep Tumor blocking is AWESOME. It's such a great feeling.
On May 04 2011 18:09 greycubed wrote: Could everyone PLEASE stop saying hydras do good dps and demolish gateway units? It's SO wrong.
dps per cost:
zergling: 28.74 roach: 8.00 hydra: 9.64
yes, lings cost more larva, but they only use minerals.
Roaches won't bankrupt you on larva though. And they save you a lot of gas. And they're fast. And they don't get one-shot. And you can research burrow-move.
Edit: also I didn't watch your replay, but generally I agree with you about spine crawlers. I think they're underused.
DPS per cost doesn't really make sense. If you want that figure it'd be better to look at how much 1 DPS costs on a unit by unit basis, surely?
Cost for 1 DPS (Gas = 1 and Mineral = 1)
Zergling: 3.472 Roach: 12.5 Hydra: 10.345
Even then that doesn't really tell you anything and the presumption made that 1 gas is the same as 1 mineral is demonstrably wrong. By your original measure slow Lings on a 1 to 1 basis with marines have over double the "DPS per cost" but I bet you wouldn't send 10 unupgraded lings in to 10 unupgraded marines and expect to win.
The measure completely ignores range, supply, time, actual DPS and all unit properties and abilities and is so fairly useless. According to the chart you linked any Zerg player that produces anything but a ling would have to be insane.
If we try to take everything else in to account we realise at least the following:
- More unit's can shoot at a unit at once than melee a unit at once.
- Ranged units begin attacking much earlier and so more of them are able to DPS and generally able to for longer.
- Zerglings deal 0 DPS when at range 5.
- On a per larva basis Hydralisks are more efficient than Zerglings.
- Zerglings deal less DPS than Roaches or Hydralisks.
- Zealots destroy Zerglings and Sentry's can negate their DPS. Neither Zealots, Sentry's or Stalkers perform well against Hydralisks.
I guess in short the point I'm getting to is that you're looking at completely the wrong things when deciding what destroy's Gateway units and what doesn't.
On a seperate note this build looks interesting I'll give it a go and get back with results, thanks.
On May 04 2011 18:09 greycubed wrote: Could everyone PLEASE stop saying hydras do good dps and demolish gateway units? It's SO wrong.
dps per cost:
zergling: 28.74 roach: 8.00 hydra: 9.64
yes, lings cost more larva, but they only use minerals.
Roaches won't bankrupt you on larva though. And they save you a lot of gas. And they're fast. And they don't get one-shot. And you can research burrow-move.
Edit: also I didn't watch your replay, but generally I agree with you about spine crawlers. I think they're underused.
DPS per cost doesn't really make sense. If you want that figure it'd be better to look at how much 1 DPS costs on a unit by unit basis, surely?
Cost for 1 DPS (Gas = 1 and Mineral = 1)
Zergling: 3.472 Roach: 12.5 Hydra: 10.345
Even then that doesn't really tell you anything and the presumption made that 1 gas is the same as 1 mineral is demonstrably wrong. By your original measure slow Lings on a 1 to 1 basis with marines have over double the "DPS per cost" but I bet you wouldn't send 10 unupgraded lings in to 10 unupgraded marines and expect to win.
The measure completely ignores range, supply, time, actual DPS and all unit properties and abilities and is so fairly useless. According to the chart you linked any Zerg player that produces anything but a ling would have to be insane.
If we try to take everything else in to account we realise at least the following:
- More unit's can shoot at a unit at once than melee a unit at once.
- Ranged units begin attacking much earlier and so more of them are able to DPS and generally able to for longer.
- Zerglings deal 0 DPS when at range 5.
- On a per larva basis Hydralisks are more efficient than Zerglings.
- Zerglings deal less DPS than Roaches or Hydralisks.
- Zealots destroy Zerglings and Sentry's can negate their DPS. Neither Zealots, Sentry's or Stalkers perform well against Hydralisks.
I guess in short the point I'm getting to is that you're looking at completely the wrong things when deciding what destroy's Gateway units and what doesn't.
On a seperate note this build looks interesting I'll give it a go and get back with results, thanks.
nice post, hopefully people will shut up about it now. OT i'm not a zerg or protoss player but nice guide ^^
This is not a hydra vs zergling DPS thread, so please keep the thread on topic. OP, what JustAGame posted is completely correct. There's no point in discussing a build's efficacy if you're not winning because of the build itself, but because your opponent played poorly. The reason is you'll come to a point where you'll face competent opponents and the build may just stop working entirely (as you found out from your previous thread). Here are some things to consider: At ~8 minutes, a typical 3 gate expand Protoss should have ~60 supply, not ~40. At ~12 minutes, he should be at ~120-130 supply if no engagements have happened, not ~80. A proper 6 gate moves out at ~8:00 minutes and hits somewhere at ~9:00 (depending on the rush distance). I would love to test this build out against you, but I don't have an EU account. So ask yourself this: do you really think you can keep up in macro if you decide to do this build, and do you really think you can hold off well-executed timing attacks with this build? What about a Protoss who goes mass air (heavy phoenix), meaning your drop won't work and neither will mutas? What about a greedier Protoss who takes a fast 3rd and turtles?
With all due respect, I find really unpleasant that some people think that because it has not been validated against top players, the strat is worthless to the point that I shouldn't have posted it. In my humble opinion, it just doesn't make sense to say that my strategy "doesn't work"; it just works at a certain level. I don't claim to have found the mathematical solution to sc2; just a valid strat for the 95% of players like me who never play against grandmaster (have a look at "an aggressive path" 1.0, it was limited, and yet some people enjoyed it: isn't that the purpose of a forum?). Just take it for what it is (I have already warned people in my production by the way)!
Now, please let me make a reflection on forum regulations: I very much understand the necessity of avoiding crappy posts, like insults, 2 sentence unjustified answers, off topic debate and so on.
But this is not what is at stake here. I made a perfectly correct and justified post, provided replays and so on; it completely respects teamliquid standards of presentation. What I am being reproached is basically that I didn't test my bo against much better players than those with whom I am actually paired on the ladder. Unfortunately, I don't have any grandmaster protoss friend and I rarely meet any in tournament. So in the end, I am bit wondering about what are mods doing here: because if you need to have the authorization of a blue writer anytime you want to propose or share something, I am afraid we are not going anywhere. By the way, if people feel deeply irritated by my post or I don't know what related to it, they can just not read it.
As for testing against much higher players "to see if it works" I am afraid it's a kind of tricky suggestion: given that I don't have the mechanics of a grandmaster, I would lose, even if my strategy wasn't bad.
I understand where some of the naysayers are coming from, but... if you don't like the strat, you don't have to use it. OP spent a lot of time putting this together, it's working for him at masters level, and people can feel free to take from it what they will. His opponents' macro is not on par with high level players, but if a high level zerg player tried OP's strat he would be able to increase the efficacy as well.
When Spanishiwa posted his ice fisher strat, people called him an idiot (including some blue posters), and guess what- now other high level players are taking concepts from his build and including it in their own play.
If a strat is terrible then people will want to hear it, but have a little more respect for the OPs that are going out of their way to try and add some fun content for the general population.
Don't worry, I'm not closing your thread, and wasn't even thinking about it. I realize you put a lot of effort into your OP, and it's a good one. However, there's a difference between providing replays against grandmaster level players and providing replays against players who can actually macro and execute a solid build order. I hope you can agree that at the very least, this standard should be met if you're going to write a guide. I'm not requiring you to modify your OP in any way by finding more opponents to play and posting those replays. I'm just saying that JustAGame's concern was perfectly legitimate.
I don't think it's very hard to realize the difference between competency and whatever level you think I'm trying to hold you to. All I want is to see that your build works against competent players. That doesn't mean master or grandmaster or whatever. It just means they have a solid build order and know how to execute it and know how to properly macro. I'm sure there are plenty of competent players in diamond, just like there are plenty of incompetent players in masters. I can even name a few in grandmasters. So if your build works against competent players, that means that you're winning because of your build, and not because of how good you are or how bad your opponent is. That's all I want to see.
Also, I hate to say it, but "fun content" is very low on our priority list here compared to viability. You read the strategy forums to learn how to improve your gameplay. If you want to hear trivial discussions about nuke rushes and mothership rushes, go the the B.net forums. That said, if you find out how to make a nuke rush or mothership rush or raven rush or brood lord rush work without being gimmicky, then by all means post about it.
well his concerns are fine, I am not even saying he lacks respect (he very nicely PMed me); the problem being that kind of "all or nothing blackmail" like: if it's not perfect, then it's nothing. people I have played with are not bronze players, they are master guys, they know how to follow a build more or less correctly; they are probably making mistakes as I do; they would get raped against better players as I would, that's it. I don't understand your distinction between level and competence, I have played against tens of protoss master players, we can hope that some of them were "competent" according to your definition.
Then, I completely agree with you that we don't know if this build works against very good players, (I would personnally love to discover that), it's a limit to my post; yet I have the lack of modesty to think that despite that, some people still may be interested in what I wanted to share.
Having said that, I will stop here on this issue, as I feel it doesn't bring much.
EDIT: sorry to mention for half a line the possibility of "being fun " on creep tumors in my 5 page post. (I thought starcraft was "just a game" so to speak)
On May 05 2011 01:10 Saracen wrote: This is not a hydra vs zergling DPS thread, so please keep the thread on topic. OP, what JustAGame posted is completely correct. There's no point in discussing a build's efficacy if you're not winning because of the build itself, but because your opponent played poorly. The reason is you'll come to a point where you'll face competent opponents and the build may just stop working entirely (as you found out from your previous thread). Here are some things to consider: At ~8 minutes, a typical 3 gate expand Protoss should have ~60 supply, not ~40. At ~12 minutes, he should be at ~120-130 supply if no engagements have happened, not ~80. A proper 6 gate moves out at ~8:00 minutes and hits somewhere at ~9:00 (depending on the rush distance). I would love to test this build out against you, but I don't have an EU account. So ask yourself this: do you really think you can keep up in macro if you decide to do this build, and do you really think you can hold off well-executed timing attacks with this build? What about a Protoss who goes mass air (heavy phoenix), meaning your drop won't work and neither will mutas? What about a greedier Protoss who takes a fast 3rd and turtles?
This is slightly unrelated, but Saracen, you find air play stops drops? I agree it makes sense intuitively, but from my experience and watching IdrA and morrow, air play in not the answer to drops. Air cuts into the protoss gas/ stalker count. Plus if they over make phoenix (which they have to to stop the drops), all the roaches and/or lings you were going to drop are all that much more effective on ground.
Maybe I would agree with you Saracen if you are a little more specific with the timings you are talking about. Are we talking 1 or 2 base air timings? When are you starting to research drop? Unless they have around 4-5 phoenix, I still find that overlord drops (especially hydra drops) are effective as long as you bring a few extra empty overlords to tank damage (and protect them with the hydras once you've dropped). I find phoenix just don't kill overlords fast enough to nullify the strategy (I'm not necessarily talking about the OP's strategy, but more drops in general).
It's like scourge in BW. Yes they "own" medivacs, but TvZ drops were still very effective.
Could you comment on that a little, or specify what timings you are talking about in your post, Saracen?
I thhink you are being a little overly defensive, and what saracen is trying to say is that league doesnt really matter. It doesnt matter if they are in masters or not, the fact of the matter is that they were 20 supply (at least) behind optimally executing their builds, which is huge.
Based on the fact that many people have made it into master league by only 4 gating and other such cheese strats, I think it is very obvious that there are lots of people in Master league who dont have any kind of real foundation in macro mechanics.
Nobody is hating on your build or anything, just trying to protect you from getting all excited because you feel like your build is wrecking the master ladder, when in actuality (based solely on the replays you supplied) is just raping a sub-par version of an actual build that you will go up against.
I am a high diamond zerg, and I have played protoss at my level who can hit 60 supply at 8 minutes with a 3 gate exp. So to get a better idea of how strong this build actually is you should find some practice partners who can macro well and try it against them. (not just play it on the ladder, as a 6 pool can get you into masters, but is it a good build?)
Edit : sorry my post is kind of redundant after reading your reply to saracens post
Also, I hate to say it, but "fun content" is very low on our priority list here compared to viability. You read the strategy forums to learn how to improve your gameplay. If you want to hear trivial discussions about nuke rushes and mothership rushes, go the the B.net forums. That said, if you find out how to make a nuke rush or mothership rush or raven rush or brood lord rush work without being gimmicky, then by all means post about it.
This is obviously one of many reasons why you are a high level player and scrubs like me are well, scrubs.. but some of us play this game purely for fun (gasp) and sometimes it's more entertaining to try new builds that may be sub-optimal just for the fk of it. just feel like people take themselves a bit too seriously in here... it is a computer game after all....
Also, I hate to say it, but "fun content" is very low on our priority list here compared to viability. You read the strategy forums to learn how to improve your gameplay. If you want to hear trivial discussions about nuke rushes and mothership rushes, go the the B.net forums. That said, if you find out how to make a nuke rush or mothership rush or raven rush or brood lord rush work without being gimmicky, then by all means post about it.
This is obviously one of many reasons why you are a high level player and scrubs like me are well, scrubs.. but some of us play this game purely for fun (gasp) and sometimes it's more entertaining to try new builds that may be sub-optimal just for the fk of it. just feel like people take themselves a bit too seriously in here... it is a computer game after all....
bnet forum here i come
There are plenty of places on the internet to discuss "fun/crazy/wacky" strategies. TL is not one of them. There are very few places on the internet where you can get a lot of high quality discussions about viable strategies. I'd dare to say TL is the only place at the moment. As much as I'd like to have a bunch of crazy discussions about weird strategies, we've found by trial and error that doing so discourages actual high level relevant discussion because the boards are perceived as "lower level" so higher level players are less willing to share their insights. Would you really want to talk about standard build timings and responses if you know half of the replies are going to be "you should nuke/vortex/mass PDD him herp derp?" I realize that there are plenty of casual players - in fact, a majority of people who play SC2 are casual players, and that's quite alright. But TL is probably not the place for them, and they'd be better suited for the B.net forums. TL's for players who actually want to make a conscious effort to improve their gameplay, regardless of what league they're in.
But we should get the discussion back on track. Please no more derailing the OP.
Erm, I always have thought about doing something like this, but whenever I harass the protoss just pushes and I usually don't have enough to hold because i invested in drop early on... base trade... eh i kinda don't like it. Just how toss play nowadays, every drop play is seen as an all in. I used to use mutas a lot in ZvP but then they just see the mutas and go and push with probes and everything, stupid ik, but so hard to hold :/
Now that many Protoss players plan to fend off Losira's Roach Ling push with an early void ray from oGsMC, this tactic seems to be extremely effective to punish an early stargate.
I think this is kind of a necro. The idea still seems fine, but I don't know if timings still work and how this works against the (ever increasingly popular) 3gate Sentry Expand.
On July 15 2011 06:13 Requizen wrote: I think this is kind of a necro. The idea still seems fine, but I don't know if timings still work and how this works against the (ever increasingly popular) 3gate Sentry Expand.
I did it yesterday and it worked just fine, although it was mainly because the toss had a bad sim city which allowed my roaches to snipe a forge and gate I believe.
how it fares against 3 gate sentry expand?? sentries are awful fighting units and upgraded hydras have the same range as stalkers, so if he is going to FF your hydras he still has to get in range to attack with stalkers, and FF tend to mess with zealots as much as they do zerg units when you have hydras. ie. it is ez to put down FF that do more harm then good if you are not careful when fighting hydras with no collosus.
NOT TO MENTION THE VERY FIRST SECTION OF THE GUIDE READS VS 3 GATE EXPO.
i prefer the morrow style of mass ling/bling play with drops then transition into infestor/hive tech i think it is more efficient and gives you a greater map presence
this strategy punishes pretty much any mistake from toss, as well as overreliance on a low unit count to defend while teching to the deathball, quite a great way to play for Zerg, despite being a protoss player i find that it is a very great way to play, personally i go 5gate 2forge blink -> chargelot ht archon and i find that this is the easiest way to hold this off, with my build specifically i have +1/+1 when the hydras are dropped....even with this though i find that the zerg is able to use it to secure the 3rd and 4th bases and drone like mad which is why i love the strategy as it is quite macro based and cleverly distracts the protoss while expanding and droning :D however when i see it i just add archon asap get ~4 then chargelot stalker from there replacing the archons that die to stay around 4-6 archons with +2/+2 when i push to kill his 3rd and 4th, normally this will force an awkward timing of hydras or other ground units from zerg if not the zerg will just die due to the archons being so good vs mutas
this build seems to be a build order win against anyone who opens 1 base stargate. the extra queens fend off the first void rays/phoenix. hydras pop to clean up if necessary, and then you drop when they are expoing.
the dude i played had less then 10 stalkers and 2 or 3 each sentries/zealots. definitely punishes protoss who dont have good macro/think they can be greedy.
nice work.
edit: went 6-0 with this build tonight in customs when the map\positions allowed for it including beating my first masters player (i am r1 plat)
Holy crap, this is a great build. I'm a Zerg that likes to play aggressively, so this build seems like it would really suit me. Sniping the Cybercore is a great idea, especially if you transition into 4 base mutalisks. Also, against Stalkers both air and armor are equally useful, although since many players get Storms + Archons vs Mutalisks, attack will probably be more useful against an intelligent player. It also lets your harassment work better, especially if he's not attacking your mutalisks at all due to a double-pronged attack.
Thanks for the build; definitely will try it out later!
I haven't had time to try this build but I am interested in testing it out as soon as I get a chance. Also, I just thought of an idea.
I also open 11overpool 18hatch ice-fisher style. In fact, I go one step further and completely ignore zergling speed in my ZvP mu. You should be familiar with the build enough that I have 15/18 drones/supply when the pool pops, ~250 minerals, and 2 larva.
What if: - 15 extractor - 14 queen - 16 zerglings x2 - 18 hatch - @100 gas lair - rush overlord drop tech
drop even earlier with roaches and 4 queens
Do you think that will be effective as well? It won't be vulnerable to voidrays and transfuse can help keep roaches alive against immortals.
I like this topic very much! While it sounds flawed in many places I am sure we can plug it up as we try it out and improvise on it. I find myself a very aggressive player and zerg a little too reactive. This maybe my favourite once I adopt it to my style.
just to try to answer to previous remarks - I am not sure about what to say about roaches, as I don't use them personnally except in specific cases... (that i mention after) - about 11 overlord 11 pool instead of 11 pool 11 overlord, I don't know! worth a try, I just suspect it would not change so much the overall stuff...
I am still using this BO, cause I think it works pretty well (at my level at least). Now I have been practicing it for a bit more. So a few extra remarks.
- the early game is the hardest part. First because there is a small timing windows around 2:00, where your opponent can push with two units. So I recommend having a spine started at around 18/19 just after your 18 hatch, so that you transfer it to your natural when it's almost finished. The goal is to have it ready before 2 min (most people won't push at that time but you know...) Also, for that reason, I recommend making 4 lings and not two, so that you can take your natural as soon as possible. (do not delay the building of your 18 hatch to hide it from scouting probes, as it delays too much your bo. instead, I would recommend making four lings to kill any pylon block. they will be useful for later scouting anyway (some people will put a pylon which will be almost instantly destroyed by your lings, so it may be an advantage for you). After that, make an overlord at 24 and drones until 31, then 2 extra queens (for a total of 3 at around 36 food).
Then, until 9/10 min, you are pretty exposed to early pressure, and you have to take a lot of information (ideally your four original lings should be enough, with an overlord at his natural and another one to sacrifice in his main).
This is true against 6 gate pushes. Also if you see no expand at 6:15 / 6:30, your opponent is pretty likely doing some kind of DT/void ray or blink one base harass (normal timing for 3 gate expand being 5:45 as far as I know) ... So I recommend in that case to give up the strat (especially against DT, which is likely to transition into archons, which is a bit annoying for your mutas), put down a roach warren, an evolution chamber and 2 spores. while still going to lair; and just mass units, do upgrades and prepare for a two bases push around 10 / 11 min.
If you do that correctly, it's usually a reasonably easy win, cause after air or DT harass he won't have enough units to defend. Against blink stalkers, I am not sure still...
Of course, same reaction should apply to 4 gate pushes earlier, cause they are not that easy to defend (basically, the problem is scouting in order to react in time, when you don't have speedling, by planting lots of spines, and starting speedling and roach warren asap).
later in the game, i think it's always better to not defend and go for base trade with mass mutas... basically, if you see him "all-ining" you, just go on mutas production, transfer your drones from the base he attacks first, make a spawning pool and a spire in the less exposed base, and make sure to send drones all over the place to build extractors, new bases that kind of stuff. never engage his army, sooner or later he will have to retreat to defend his remaining pylons, and then, you just restart your economy. if he tries to kill your remaining base, go kill his pylons... When u train a bit, these base trade situations are kind of easy to win too if you have a reasonable amount of mutas, as you know how to play them (contrary to most of your opponents who don't base trade as often)
Hey Macpo! HUGE fan of your awesome strat. I have played with it countless times and I do have a few questions.
1.) Due to a hallucinated phoenix, the Protoss can scout your hydra den and will constantly scout more often, especially if you have a lot of overlords congregated at one rally point. Just for safer play, would it be a good idea to put down a roach warren and hide your hydra den tech?
2.) When a 6 gate +1 timing hits, do you send off your hydras to the Protoss base to base trade or defend?
3.) When should you produce lings? I have a tendency to over-drone, knowing that I will use these drones as spines and expos. That causes me to only produce hydras. When should i stop producing drones? I am assuming i need to over-saturate by 14 drones because of 7 spines, 4 extractors, 2 bases, and a spire.
After that, make an overlord at 24 and drones until 31, then 2 extra queens (for a total of 3 at around 36 food).
In your OP, you say to make a queen as soon as the 1st finishes building, then a 3rd queen at the nat when that finishes.
It sounds like from the above that you have changed this, and now wait til ~31 food to make the other 2? Or am I misinterpreting the above?
If I am not misinterpreting, doesn't building a queen that late get in the way of your lair tech? If you are putting down your gasses at between 36 & 40, won't you have enough for lair before your queen pops? Or does the timing work out?
On July 19 2011 04:26 Macpo wrote: later in the game, i think it's always better to not defend and go for base trade with mass mutas... basically, if you see him "all-ining" you, just go on mutas production, transfer your drones from the base he attacks first, make a spawning pool and a spire in the less exposed base, and make sure to send drones all over the place to build extractors, new bases that kind of stuff. never engage his army, sooner or later he will have to retreat to defend his remaining pylons, and then, you just restart your economy. if he tries to kill your remaining base, go kill his pylons... When u train a bit, these base trade situations are kind of easy to win too if you have a reasonable amount of mutas, as you know how to play them (contrary to most of your opponents who don't base trade as often)
I tried this build for about 10 ladder games (~1700 masters) and all my wins off it were from base trades. Granted, my opening is a bit rough which hurts my drop, but having a moderate sized muta ball + drop tech is very powerful for base trading.
You can pick up drones in your overlords (Queens can be very useful as well to save since transfuse is amazing in these situations) and either just take various expos or just build extractors everywhere around the map.
Did u consider changing drop into nydus? It feels like its much more fluid to just pop nydus - it makes creep so u can instantly start creep spread with ur queens and its much more safe vs stargate or blink stalkers - if he get lucky and spot ur drop half way he can just snipe 2-3 overlords before they can drop which can be game ending right there. Also vs stargate u wont be able to retreat with drop or he just kill ur overlords before they get back to base. Nydus on the other hand is pretty safe coz even if he spot it building u dont lose any units just 100/100 is ur real cost + u give up information that u try nydus play.
On May 05 2011 01:10 Saracen wrote: This is not a hydra vs zergling DPS thread, so please keep the thread on topic. OP, what JustAGame posted is completely correct. There's no point in discussing a build's efficacy if you're not winning because of the build itself, but because your opponent played poorly. The reason is you'll come to a point where you'll face competent opponents and the build may just stop working entirely (as you found out from your previous thread). Here are some things to consider: At ~8 minutes, a typical 3 gate expand Protoss should have ~60 supply, not ~40. At ~12 minutes, he should be at ~120-130 supply if no engagements have happened, not ~80. A proper 6 gate moves out at ~8:00 minutes and hits somewhere at ~9:00 (depending on the rush distance). I would love to test this build out against you, but I don't have an EU account. So ask yourself this: do you really think you can keep up in macro if you decide to do this build, and do you really think you can hold off well-executed timing attacks with this build? What about a Protoss who goes mass air (heavy phoenix), meaning your drop won't work and neither will mutas? What about a greedier Protoss who takes a fast 3rd and turtles?
mass air doesn't stop drops as day[9] said in one of his daily. Mass hydra drops completely kill mass air easily. Taking a fast 3rd will only spread out his defensive, making drops more efficient. Unless the first drops went that horribly wrong, I don't see how it cannot work.
With queens and spines and some lings, it should be pretty enough to deal with most protoss pressure as spanishwa has shown
Nydus is better than drop if it succeeds simply because it is cheaper, faster, and you can reinforce with it. The problem is that it can be completely denied if the toss suspects you of doing it and a single patrolling probe (maybe two, depending on the map) can shut down the build entirely.
Concerning toss builds:
2 base Stargate play is actually one of the best builds to go hydra drops against. Toss doesn't have enough units to challenge your army and there aren't enough air units out to kill enough overlords before you reach their base.
Fast 3 base isn't a problem. If he has enough probes to actually benefit from it early enough, then he'll lose his main (which is where his production is.) If he doesn't saturate, then it's just an investment that hasn't paid itself off against a timing push. Drops completely bypass cannons, so it's not easy for toss to turtle. It's not a build you'll see though, since toss probably expects a hydraling timing push and there's no way you take a third in response to that.
6 gate is easily the most difficult build for this strategy. The thing is that this build isn't designed to kill the protoss, it's to basically pressure him into staying in his base while you take the map and build a mutaball.
Base trading is a very big threat here. If protoss goes for it there's many many factors that favor the zerg (drop tech, hydraling DPS vs probably sentry heavy gateway DPS.)
I haven't had time to try this build but I am interested in testing it out as soon as I get a chance. Also, I just thought of an idea.
I also open 11overpool 18hatch ice-fisher style. In fact, I go one step further and completely ignore zergling speed in my ZvP mu. You should be familiar with the build enough that I have 15/18 drones/supply when the pool pops, ~250 minerals, and 2 larva.
What if: - 15 extractor - 14 queen - 16 zerglings x2 - 18 hatch - @100 gas lair - rush overlord drop tech
drop even earlier with roaches and 4 queens
Do you think that will be effective as well? It won't be vulnerable to voidrays and transfuse can help keep roaches alive against immortals.
Well I guess that's worth a try! I would just go try it for a couple of games... the only thing is I am not sure you can go much faster for a drop without killing your economy...
@tendou 1) I don't know about an extra roach warren: it might really be interesting for safety against early pushes, but I don't know if it's worth the cost only for "counter-information" purposes... Then I don't know if we can decide about this definitely.... 2) against 6 gate timings, I found myself a bit short on timing to defend it, so right now I put a roach warren, when I scout it ( I sacrifice overlord at around 7 min) and switch to a big roach push with lair upgrades (speed, burrow, possibly +1/+1 3) About lings, I think it's very important to have some. My timings on drone production is: making drones until lair has finished. then when hydra den is being built, make overlords; and then make hydra and lings.
Now, one important thing: I think speedlings are essential to the drop as they tank quite well damage, physically block units, and protect hydras. So I would really recommend not to sacrifice lings for drones at that point... Also about the drop: if it comes a bit late, I would recommend just trying to snipe a nexus and go with your left overs, instead of staying until the end in his main... This will allow later multi pronged attacks, and for the protoss to stay in his base to defend the expected drop
@Morik, I change that a bit for sure. the idea is that you don't need the second queen that early, and you will waste minerals that you can otherwise spend on drones. Then starting two more queens at around 31 (i.e. your second drones round with queen inject) should not be annoying for going to lair, as their building doesn't last so long (you build extractors at around 36/40, then you wait for them to be finished, and then you wait for 100 gas, and this is long enough if I am correct) (basically, one queen building is around the same as one inject )
@Captpanda, would you have some replays that I could watch? thanks!
hmm, after watching the replays, I don't feel so good about the build anymore. The ling+hydra+queen drops is really interesting, I would definitely take it out and see if I can put it into my games. It feels a bit like 2base hydra drops play but with some extra toppings on it.
I can see why this build works from some replays that shows that even if you had some mis-micro muta and lost quite a number of it but still managed to win. But it is really weird and feels really "off" for me. Thanks anyway
For a long time, I have been wondering wether it was better to drop with hydras on the choke or on the nexus...
I now came to the conclusion it's significantly better to just drop on a nexus, in order to snipe it and go (if possible putting a creep tumor...). There are two reasons for that.
1. If you just drop at the choke to exchange armies, there is a real possibility that your opponent win the engagement. The drop sometimes works, but it's a bit too all in, as your opponent may well have enough gateway army to kill you. Sniping a nexus, on the contrary, can be done before your opponent even goes back to his main because you have many hydras and zerglings(and because of narrow choke due to gateway and cybernetic core on the way), ; and then you can just go back in the overlords.
2. Which is the second advantage. you should get around all your army back or at least part of it, which then remains a big threat. Basically, if he moves to your base to kill you, you can just drop again in his base and go for base trade, which (with the help of mutas) is often won by the zerg...
Conclusion: the more I play this build, the more I feel trading base is the way to go
EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/guNGP.png)
, I felt that somehow they were right. There were some kind of inherent limits to the build that made it weak to a variety of things. ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/ktfmO.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/LVpNf.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/aVAwo.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/yTFct.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/YTCMI.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/fK7FB.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/OWEGV.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/yO4W2.png)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/TQfOK.png)
