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Updated with a replay, more will be coming. Hopefully I get a decent zerg opponent =p
OK, so by now everyone knows about the 'Losira timing attack' where the Zerg hits with a strong roach/ling timing attack against a standard 3gate sentry expand Protoss shortly after the expansion nexus completes. Sentry expand was everyone's standard of standards, but now it's really hard (many would say almost impossible) to hold off the roach/ling attack without taking serious losses, or blind building enough cannons to set you behind in economy. So is sentry expanding dead? Do you need to practice FF micro for 5 hours a day and memorize the correct simcity positioning on every position of every map? Nahhhh, just make a few tweaks and you're good.
So here are the tweaks: -2gate sentry expand instead of 3gate. Brought to you by reduced sentry build time. -Build 2 cannons blind at 7:10, so they complete just in time for the attack - if you need them. -Send out hallucinated phoenix(es) at around the same time as you build the cannons, so you will either see the attack coming, and keep the cannons, or see that it is NOT coming, and cancel the cannons to get 225 minerals back.
And there you have it. It's not quite as powerful and greedy as not building cannons or getting hallucinate, praying the attack doesn't come, but it works and hallucinate is always nice. ROOT.Minigun says he prefers blind building a single cannon, keeping it always, and relying on FF micro to win, but... yeah... not everyone is capable of that.
These are the goals I set out for the build. They are open to discussion but I believe they're effective: + Show Spoiler +-warpgate research complete at 6:00 - requires 3 chronoboosts, assuming you 14gate which gets the cybernetics core done around 3:50
-forge complete with 300 minerals available at 7:10 for completed cannons at 7:50
-hallucinate complete at 7:10 - it takes about 25s for a phoenix to go across most maps, so it will be over your opponent's hatchery in time to cancel your cannons if there are no roaches. This requires one chronoboost. You'll want to use 2 chronoboosts and complete hallucination by 7:00 on maps that take a long time to cover the attack path and reach the enemy main.
-spend 100% of gas at all times, until you finish sentry production
-Build probes nonstop, with as many chronoboosts as possible, as early as possible. Assuming 3 chronoboosts on warp, that leaves you 4 to spend on probes before it completes. You also get a 5th and 6th available while hallucinate is researching. You might want to use your first chronoboost on the zealot, and you might want to save the 5th and 6th to use as a reaction based on what the phoenix sees. In my build I assume you can't use a 3rd boost on probes before starting a zealot, but if you see that it's safe it does give you a better economy without needing to change anything in the build.
-put the forge AND 3rd gate into the expo wall? I'm not certain the forge is necessary, since you'll have 2 cannons, but it could be helpful - could also be a liability in case they do some goofy allin and force you to abandon the low ground. Anyways, to get the forge into the wall on time you need a low ground pylon started by 6:00. My tests give me 1 zealot and 2 sentries around 5:15, the 3rd around 5:50, and the 4th/5th around 6:10. Can the pylon be planted and defended with 1z/3s for ten seconds until the 2 extra sentries arrive? Someone better than me can answer that. If you have 2 cannons, 1-2 pylons, and just the 3rd gateway in the wall, is that enough?
-nexus planted ASAP, as long as it's after 5:50. I say this because, if you get hit with some sort of faster roach attack with less drones before the 7:30 mark, you might need to cancel your stuff on the low ground and retreat up your ramp. 20s + of FF stalling with no backup DPS is probably unrealistic. Also, 5:50 is when you get your third sentry, and before that I'm 99% certain you can't leave your ramp to fight off speedlings.
-3rd gate planted in time to keep up with your income - this one I'm including as a formality really, since between chronoboosts, nonstop probes, 2 gates, and building geysers at the expo, I find there's no trouble at all keeping the money spent. I also think a 3rd gate might not even be necessary - 2gates will spend your income up to the point of the attack, and you get a phoenix into his main by 7:50, so you can still decide to build a faster robo or something instead of more gates. Cancelling the cannons when you determine there's no roach rush coming does leave you with a bunch of minerals, but there's no harm in being flexible in the way you spend them.
-Have ways to branch off the main build into some variant(s), based on scouting at certain times - this is frosting on the cake for some determined individual, I won't touch this but it's worth mentioning.
-Is there anything else that needs mentioning? I don't think so. Feel free to add something if it's important.
If you think these goals are bad in any way, feel free to say so and we'll try to figure out something better.
And now, on to the build: + Show Spoiler +-constant probes at all times, I won't say it over and over 9 -pylon, scout 10 -2 probe chronoboosts in a row 14 -gate 15 -gas 16 -pylon 18 -cybernetics core 18 -gas #2 19 -zealot -chronoboost probes again 23 -pylon 24 -warp gate research (chronoboost this 3 times total) 24 -sentry -chronoboost probes again (this is the 4th time) 28 -gateway #2 From here I'm not giving supply counts. Your income will line up pretty nicely with the timings I point out. -keep up the nonstop probes. Don't chrono them any more until you've scouted him with the hallucinations - you might want to use a chronoboost on your gateways if you spot an attack. -build nonstop sentries as gas allows, don't make other gateway units even though you will waste a bit of warpgate build time. You can build stalkers or whatever AFTER you lay down the cannons. -build your 4th pylon in main, 5th pylon on the low ground. Start the low ground pylon no later than 6:00 if you want your forge to be part of your walloff. -queue up hallucinate just before warpgate finishes. Chrono this once on spawns where the phoenix can fly straight over the path the roaches will take and into the enemy base. Chrono it twice if you'll need to take a longer route, like on Metalopolis cross positions - you need the phoenix to be in his base before the cannons complete so you can be certain it's safe to cancel them. -build the nexus at 5:50 -lay down a forge by 6:25. This should probably be on the low ground in your wall. -build one more pylon on the low ground, and make sure it's in a good position to power your wall and the 2 cannons you're about to build. You definitely want more than just 1 pylon powering your cannons -build 2 cannons the instant the forge completes, which is around 7:10, meaning you have 2 cannons at 7:50, just as a well-executed standard roach/ling attack will reach you. -gogogo hallucinated phoenix scout(s)! Do this ASAP when the research completes, you don't have time to spare. Send 1 per possible attack route, and make sure to have vision on his hatchery before the cannons complete. It usually takes 25s or so to cross a map. If you don't see units streaming towards you, it's 99% certain he's not attacking, but you may as well hover over his base and see what pops out of the eggs, count his drones, and check his buildings. Maybe he's just a little slow, no sense canceling cannons and then having to rebuild them a few seconds later. -Build a third gateway (optional, you might want to do something else, but you do have the minerals at this point). -If you see the attack coming, let your cannons complete and crush him. Might want to add on a third cannon and chronoboost your gateways to make extra sure. -If the attack is NOT coming, cancel your cannons quick! They will be seconds from completion by the time your phoenix is over his base. I recommend spending the money on either a gateway or double gas at the expansion, with a few minerals to spare. Don't forget to use up stored chronoboost energy on more probes. You might want to keep ONE of the cannons, just for peace of mind against later zergling harass or burrowed roaches. Up to you. -Please note: If you use the build I'm outlining and he does some crazy roach allin off of 20 drones or something, he's going to hit you before 7:30 and your cannons will be too late. Unless you're super confident you can stall with gosu forcefields, cancel everything on the low ground, retreat up the ramp, defend and push out later. He's slowed himself down just as much as you. ******EDIT*******: It also might make sense to build the forge sooner (probably by building it before the nexus), then plant your first cannon around 6:45-50 so it will be there in time to help defend vs faster roachling busts. Downsides to this are a worse economy (delayed expansion) and needing to decide whether to cancel or keep the first cannon before your phoenix reaches his main. Upside is you never need to cancel your expansion, so you pretty much insta-win vs a 20ish-drone roachling attack.*********END EDIT*********** -Please also note: on close spawns, you might want to cut ONE probe after building the nexus to get the forge and cannons down faster, since he'll be at your base a few seconds earlier.
So there you go, you're at 8:00, you've scouted him, you've got an expansion running with a healthy probe count, you've got loads of sentries, and you aren't DEAD. Good luck!
Replays:
+ Show Spoiler +http://drop.sc/11165OK, here's one I played a few minutes ago. The opponent was... not top-noch, and I make several mistakes, but you get an idea for how it goes. Accidentally sending the hallucinate late forced me to cancel the first cannon before I reached his main, where I did see some roaches and low saturation, so I decided to keep the second cannon. He didn't attack but whatever. He plays defensively and I expand and max out before killing him, yawwwwn, I'm not very good or I probably would have recognized that I could kill him at any time. Oh well =p Obvious mistakes: -queued up hallucinate before dropping nexus, delaying the expansion -I forget to build probes a few times -I forget to send out the hallucinate phoenixes for 20s! LOL =] Possible mistakes: -I built a low ground pylon before the nexus, but wouldn't have supply blocked by going nexus before pylon... hrmm... -I built my 3rd gate before my cannons, delaying the second cannon by a fair bit, but getting the gateway up faster. For the haters who just gotta have 3gates, maybe you actually prefer this =]
+ Show Spoiler +http://drop.sc/11169Here's another one, it's not quite as terrible a game, but I do butcher the opening pretty badly. I also decided to try building the nexus before the low ground pylon this time. I make mistakes again, including accidentally cancelling only 1 cannons ><. You still get the idea of the build. Side note, don't bother getting double robo for immortals really early, you can't afford it ^^
+ Show Spoiler +http://drop.sc/11170K here's one where he actually does the attack. I have no idea why he only has 14 drones and hits later than 8:00, but he has the unit count that I believe is common, so no biggie that he has no drones. It still shows how the attack is easily held, even with my omfg bad micro. Note: position pylon #2 somewhere else, so you can build your 2nd, or a 3rd cannon directly above the nexus if you want it.
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the only thing that confuses me about this build is why you're getting warpgate first when warpgate is primarily used for aggression or at least the threat thereof, when you follow that up with an expansion plus cannons (that might be canceled, but still loses you 75 minerals for no actual gain).
the benefit of warpgate first is that you have the threat of heavy pressure instead of an expansion and it keeps the zerg honest, but you dont even know whether to apply this heavy pressure until youve already thrown 700+ minerals into a simcity expansion. if you were to get hallucinate first, and then warpgate second, you can see a roach ling all-in coming before you need to decide on cannons, so you won't waste money or time spent holding money on defense that isn't needed. and then WG research will finish at the same time your expansion does, allowing you to go for a 6gate +1 timing attack if you so chose.
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i think this sounds really good =)) been having probs with that timing push loads of times so im gonna give it a shot. gj!
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On May 22 2011 17:48 kyarisan wrote: the only thing that confuses me about this build is why you're getting warpgate first when warpgate is primarily used for aggression or at least the threat thereof, when you follow that up with an expansion plus cannons (that might be canceled, but still loses you 75 minerals for no actual gain).
the benefit of warpgate first is that you have the threat of heavy pressure instead of an expansion and it keeps the zerg honest, but you dont even know whether to apply this heavy pressure until youve already thrown 700+ minerals into a simcity expansion. if you were to get hallucinate first, and then warpgate second, you can see a roach ling all-in coming before you need to decide on cannons, so you won't waste money or time spent holding money on defense that isn't needed. and then WG research will finish at the same time your expansion does, allowing you to go for a 6gate +1 timing attack if you so chose.
ye its true id prolly use that chrono for pushing out units, but the general idea is awesome.
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I've noticed players going 2gate expand rather than 3gate in many of my latest ZvPs, and it seems good. It's very important to get that nexus going asap against a zerg who's macro'ing hard.
The safety cannons + hallucinate scout sounds like a smart way to be safe against the timing you mention too.
edit:
On May 22 2011 17:48 kyarisan wrote: the only thing that confuses me about this build is why you're getting warpgate first when warpgate is primarily used for aggression or at least the threat thereof, when you follow that up with an expansion plus cannons (that might be canceled, but still loses you 75 minerals for no actual gain).
the benefit of warpgate first is that you have the threat of heavy pressure instead of an expansion and it keeps the zerg honest, but you dont even know whether to apply this heavy pressure until youve already thrown 700+ minerals into a simcity expansion. if you were to get hallucinate first, and then warpgate second, you can see a roach ling all-in coming before you need to decide on cannons, so you won't waste money or time spent holding money on defense that isn't needed. and then WG research will finish at the same time your expansion does, allowing you to go for a 6gate +1 timing attack if you so chose.
This is a good point, and getting hallucinate first may be a good option. But I want to mention that warpgate tech isn't completely worthless even on defense. Upon completion, you still basically get an entire round of units ahead, since with warp you get the units, then wait, rather than waiting first then getting the unit.
I don't know enough about the timings of everything to comment on whether that's really important or if it could be squeezed out to be made more efficient. But completing warpgate and getting that extra round of units can help defend standard speedling harass.
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Oh my goodness I just tried this and had some awesome success. Thanks!
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I think the timming of the roach-ling push is like 7:30-7:40 in xel´naga, so the build don´t reach in time, not sure tho. Still, is nice to see the brotoss comunity unite aganist this freaking push. Nice guide.
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On May 22 2011 17:48 kyarisan wrote: the only thing that confuses me about this build is why you're getting warpgate first when warpgate is primarily used for aggression or at least the threat thereof, when you follow that up with an expansion plus cannons (that might be canceled, but still loses you 75 minerals for no actual gain).
-Warpgate first keeps you safer against many allins
-Warpgate first is smoother, it costs 50/50 at a time when 100/100 is bothersome
-Nobody says you have to sentry expand, lol. Gate, gas, core, gas, warp is the core of practically every protoss build. Obviously you can cut the second gas if it suits you, or build something other than sentries, or get more gates instead of a nexus, or whatever.
-I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, just the sentry expand =] Some other guy figured getting warpgate, sentries, and a nexus was a good idea, and a lot of people agreed... I'm just refining that idea.
-Be careful about saying the 75 minerals gets you no actual gain. It gives you the ability to sentry expand without rolling the dice. Before, you either spent the money or didn't, and that either gave you an advantage or screwed you over. Now, you either spend the money or you spend a little bit, and you either have an advantage or are on equal terms.
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On May 22 2011 18:06 Belha wrote: I think the timming of the roach-ling push is like 7:30-7:40 in xel´naga, so the build don´t reach in time, not sure tho. Still, is nice to see the brotoss comunity unite aganist this freaking push. Nice guide.
No problem. Edit the build to suit specific maps and spawns. One easy way is to cut a probe after the nexus to get a faster forge. Another way is to build the forge before the nexus. Be careful not to build the cannons so early that you can't cancel them in the case of no attack.
Also, stalling for 10s with your sentries + FFs isn't too unreasonable.
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I'll try this out, seems well thought out. However, I do like getting fast DTs after my expand to repel the push, as they have no choice but to back out until detection.
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On May 22 2011 18:10 Keilah wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2011 17:48 kyarisan wrote: the only thing that confuses me about this build is why you're getting warpgate first when warpgate is primarily used for aggression or at least the threat thereof, when you follow that up with an expansion plus cannons (that might be canceled, but still loses you 75 minerals for no actual gain).
-Warpgate first keeps you safer against many allins -Warpgate first is smoother, it costs 50/50 at a time when 100/100 is bothersome -Nobody says you have to sentry expand, lol. Gate, gas, core, gas, warp is the core of practically every protoss build. Obviously you can cut the second gas if it suits you, or build something other than sentries, or get more gates instead of a nexus, or whatever. -I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, just the sentry expand =] Some other guy figured getting warpgate, sentries, and a nexus was a good idea, and a lot of people agreed... I'm just refining that idea. -Be careful about saying the 75 minerals gets you no actual gain. It gives you the ability to sentry expand without rolling the dice. Before, you either spent the money or didn't, and that either gave you an advantage or screwed you over. Now, you either spend the money or you spend a little bit, and you either have an advantage or are on equal terms.
i should clarify - no actual gain against a macro'ing zerg. of course the idea behind your build has a natural gain of safety against an all-in, i was just referring to the situation where you don't need the cannons and that's what causes the cancel, as in this situation - in this game where the zerg was macroing his drones off - these minerals (plus the early time spent without the minerals you DO receive back) are wasted. also i agree with you the sentry expand is a standard build and regardless of the order, will probably always be the safest way to open up against a zerg.
fyi if you get 2nd gas before core you can get hallu + sentry at the same time, although you don't actually need hallu right as your first sentry is finished because your sentry won't have the energy. however instant hallu would still be better than delayed hallu because a faster hallu means a faster WG research as well.
edit: i want to know more about which all-ins WG first is safer against?
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I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo
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On May 22 2011 18:16 FenneK wrote: I'll try this out, seems well thought out. However, I do like getting fast DTs after my expand to repel the push, as they have no choice but to back out until detection. You're banking on the Z doing the timing attack. A passive Zerg who is constantly pressuring your front / sends ovie can tell if you're up to something which means he can just drone drone drone to his hearts content.
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On May 22 2011 18:25 done wrote: I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo Oh you just ooze knowledge on the matter, don't you.. If it were that easy, which it's not.. you wouldn't be seeing this many threads revolving around a single build order this long after it was introduced mainstream now would you.
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5 dont know how he did it but i swear i saw whitera held this off by 6 gate on his stream today o.O
me myself held this several time with around 4 stalker and a high sentries count with 1-2 cannon (normally 1)
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On May 22 2011 18:25 done wrote: I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo
Are you saying you can lay down the nexus before 6 minutes and reliably defend without a forge? Mad skills.
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Instead of sentry expand, I change it up a bit with stargate+2gate then expand. They can't afford to produce mass roach if they want hydra and stay on top of economy.
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On May 22 2011 18:33 FataLe wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2011 18:25 done wrote: I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo Oh you just ooze knowledge on the matter, don't you.. If it were that easy, which it's not.. you wouldn't be seeing this many threads revolving around a single build order this long after it was introduced mainstream now would you.
And then again in every single one of those threads some decent protoss player comes in and tells everyone how easy it is to hold this off with just decent building, some micro and not beeing too greedy...
Just listen to Minigun for example, he served the last one of these threads >.<
Edit: for everyone who is not getting it, building a forge and a cannon is not beeing greedy and reqired to be save vs this. Also not getting a nexus before 6min is.
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On May 22 2011 18:25 done wrote: I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo
On maps with large naturals you lose vs a good ling/roach push. Theres a reason people are trying to find alternatives.
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Well, you can either build a forge, a cannon you keep, have sick micro, and probably take decent damage (even minigun says this, he expects to lose a building or two and might be forced to overbuild sentries)
Or, you can get hallucinate, a forge, two cannons you might cancel, and hold it off with bronze micro and no/very few losses.
Whatever works for you.
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On further reflection, it might be good to get the forge sooner, build a single cannon around 6:50, build the second at 7:10, and send out the Phoenix at 7:00-7:10 as planned. You will have to decide to keep or cancel the first cannon before the Phoenix reaches his main, but this way you have defense in time for the faster versions, and cancel/rebuilding a single cannon is no big deal if you spot the roaches as they spawn. Even with the wasted 37 minerals, you will be far ahead of the roaching player since your rebuilt cannon will arrive to support the 7:10 cannon only a few seconds after he reaches your natural and his attack will badly fail.
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Very interesting. I was trying to remake it in some way because it seemed that the old build timing was out and could be improved in some way. But I'm not too happy to use 3 boost on core. I tend to believe that a 3gate can never have the economy it had before, and to achieve that result I have to stand on two. Ccurrently all versions of three gates that i use got aggressive component. I'm not very happy to skip the stalker as many because I can not do nothing even though he took the gas later. So i do 2gate in cross and 3 in close position.
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Replays:
err... the replay sites don't seem to be working for me since the latest patch. If anyone tries the build and knows how to post a replay, let me know. Otherwise I'll post some once the sites get the new replay format sorted.
http://drop.sc/ works fine.
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This seems interesting and better than the dt expand im currently using against zerg. =-/
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On May 22 2011 20:40 InVerno wrote: Very interesting. I was trying to remake it in some way because it seemed that the old build timing was out and could be improved in some way. But I'm not too happy to use 3 boost on core. I tend to believe that a 3gate can never have the economy it had before, and to achieve that result I have to stand on two. Ccurrently all versions of three gates that i use got aggressive component. I'm not very happy to skip the stalker as many because I can not do nothing even though he took the gas later. So i do 2gate in cross and 3 in close position.
Well, you still get to use 4 early chronoboosts on the nexus and lay down the expansion nexus quite early. You don't need any chronoboosts on gateways. I'm satisfied with the econ it provides - Minigun says he has 31 probes at 6:30 and so do I. I don't know when exactly he plants his expansion nexus, but I doubt it's any faster than 5:50. Once you've scouted your opponent with phoenixes, you have 1-2 chronoboosts immediately to use on gates, probes, or +1, with another 2 coming in about 15s.
In other news, I feel the same way about early aggression. If I see my opponent take his gas super late, I generally skip the first zealot and build a stalker first. (might be better to go zealot-stalker, style choice). In fact, I don't even really LIKE sentry expanding! I just love problem-solving, and this was an interesting problem to solve
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On May 22 2011 18:24 kyarisan wrote:
edit: i want to know more about which all-ins WG first is safer against?
3rr pops to mind, and inbase hatchery was mentioned.
IMO warpgate first also gives a better econ, because the faster 5th+ sentries allow you to defend a newly planted nexus earlier. I don't think hallucinate first allows you to lay down the nexus before 6:00 and still be able to defend it vs zergling harass.
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Cool build, will steal. Thanks!
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Keilah,
Thank you so much for this! This has been giving me nightmares on my normal 3 gate sentry expand. Gonna try it out!
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I'm gonna try this build out once I get starcraft installed again. I haven't been feeling safe doing 3 gate sentry expand and been looking for something new to try.
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This is a nice high quality post with lots of thought put into it. I wish I can see more posts like this on TL. Thanks very much for it!!
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Im sorry, but at the pro level dropping a 3 gate sentry expand the nexus goes down at 5:48, as I understand it? Warp finishes about the same time (around 6 minutes), and its quite possible to have 5 sentries and a zealot at 6:10.
How is it beneficial to have 2 gates over three, and a nexus no earlier? Am I missing something?
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On May 22 2011 18:33 FataLe wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2011 18:25 done wrote: I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo Oh you just ooze knowledge on the matter, don't you.. If it were that easy, which it's not.. you wouldn't be seeing this many threads revolving around a single build order this long after it was introduced mainstream now would you. No, he's right. 3gate expand is still safe. This thread isn't even a 3gate expand, it's barely 2gate. The third gate isn't even started (much less producing units) until WAY after the nexus hits.
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This is a pretty good and refined build but I feel there is one problem. Its playing very safe, almost too safe. Sure you can always cancel canons and get minerals back, but this build is counting on the losira attack to happen. Any other build the zerg could be going might affect this. If they are macroing or teching, or waiting for burrow roach or hydras, it could hurt you in the end. I still feel 3gate expand is still the best build overall in PvZ. I prefer to do what minigun does which is the blind canon, a good wall and rely on FF and micro to stay alive.
Some players like to play safe and play well at it, but atleast for me personally, I dont really like it and dont like to give up this tiny edge to the opponent. I'm a Masters Toss.
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Usually the players are just doing something wrong if they are getting all in'd and losing.
I actually do a fair amount of coaching on this roach/ling subject, and every person asking for help on this subject, has been able to leave the coaching session being able to stop it, but this could work too I guess.
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I use a similar build to this all the time and it works quite well for me. I have the build just a little bit different though, first of all i 13 gate instead of 14 gate. I delay my second chronoboost to do this, I think it's worth it to get the quicker gateway as that means quicker cybercore etc. Also quite important in the case of a 6 pool etc. I also boost WG tech 4 times instead of 3, this makes the build allign better with your sentry production. WG tech with 4 boosts = 120 secs, 3 sentries = 111 secs, the first sentry starts roughly 10s after i start WG (because of zealot) so this lines up perfectly. (i'm a perfectionist when it comes to idle gateway time..) Then i also boost hallucination once actually so that overall it actually completes around 6:50.
For bigger maps I don't put blind cannons at all and just send the hallucination over the attack path, i can make cannons reactively just in time then. On smaller maps I get one cannon blindly and then more depending on what I see. Finally on really small maps I don't get hallucination and just make 1 blind cannon and don't bother with hallucination.
http://drop.sc/11125/d
This is a rep of me performing the build. I don't get pushed (didn't have a rep showing that) but the idea is pretty clear and you can see the build works quite smoothly.
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The roach-ling timing push that zerg players do doesnt follow that strict of a guideline/build. Unlike a 4gate, which will always hit at 6 minutes with 6 protoss units, the zerg can add little nuances that change the timing/strength/speed of the attack.
For example, he zerg player may decide to begin the attack when he has 20 drones. Instead, he may decide to attack at 35 drones. He may decide to go ling heavy or he might go roach heavy. Also, depending on the map and how good his injects/macro are, there can be a huge difference in the number of units you see attacking and at what time they attack.
That being said, i think a lot of people dont quite understand how strong this push is...ive played zerg players attack with upwards of 15 roaches and 20 speedlings at the 8 minute mark with the zerg player on 30 drones....2 cannons and a few sentries isnt going to stop that kind of force
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On May 23 2011 02:58 lilky wrote: The roach-ling timing push that zerg players do doesnt follow that strict of a guideline/build. Unlike a 4gate, which will always hit at 6 minutes with 6 protoss units, the zerg can add little nuances that change the timing/strength/speed of the attack.
For example, he zerg player may decide to begin the attack when he has 20 drones. Instead, he may decide to attack at 35 drones. He may decide to go ling heavy or he might go roach heavy. Also, depending on the map and how good his injects/macro are, there can be a huge difference in the number of units you see attacking and at what time they attack.
That being said, i think a lot of people dont quite understand how strong this push is...ive played zerg players attack with upwards of 15 roaches and 20 speedlings at the 8 minute mark with the zerg player on 30 drones....2 cannons and a few sentries isnt going to stop that kind of force
Yes the timings can vary a lot but any build that hits you hard before your nexus completes can be dealt with by canceling the nexus and going back up the ramp. If you do the build well your nexus completes around 7:20 and you will only have a pylon finished at the lowground by that time. If zerg chooses to hit hard before that time they will have less then 25 drones so canceling the nexus isn't that bad, they will hurt themselves more then they hurt you.
If they hit later you should already have had a chance to scout them with hallucination and thus you can react with cannons. Two or three cannons really is enough to hold off the hardest rushes on your expansion. Note that by 8 minutes you can have about 8 sentries 3 stalkers and 2 cannons, the exact composition he chooses to use really doesn't matter that much all you need to do is FF well.
Many players may find this build hard to stop and it might be but if you have good enough forcefields you should be able to hold it off fine. If you can't FF well you should play another race. It's just one of those many all-ins that is harder to stop then it is to perform.
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On May 22 2011 19:28 done wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2011 18:33 FataLe wrote:On May 22 2011 18:25 done wrote: I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo Oh you just ooze knowledge on the matter, don't you.. If it were that easy, which it's not.. you wouldn't be seeing this many threads revolving around a single build order this long after it was introduced mainstream now would you. And then again in every single one of those threads some decent protoss player comes in and tells everyone how easy it is to hold this off with just decent building, some micro and not beeing too greedy... Just listen to Minigun for example, he served the last one of these threads >.< Edit: for everyone who is not getting it, building a forge and a cannon is not beeing greedy and reqired to be save vs this. Also not getting a nexus before 6min is. But in none of these threads the"decent protoss" gives a replay or a vod, which hint to total theorycraft when the same thing ("I hold it all the time, oops sorry I have no replay") happens in all threads. Even in this thread, OP claims his build works but can't post a replay because of a strange reason.
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On May 23 2011 03:43 MrCon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2011 19:28 done wrote:On May 22 2011 18:33 FataLe wrote:On May 22 2011 18:25 done wrote: I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo Oh you just ooze knowledge on the matter, don't you.. If it were that easy, which it's not.. you wouldn't be seeing this many threads revolving around a single build order this long after it was introduced mainstream now would you. And then again in every single one of those threads some decent protoss player comes in and tells everyone how easy it is to hold this off with just decent building, some micro and not beeing too greedy... Just listen to Minigun for example, he served the last one of these threads >.< Edit: for everyone who is not getting it, building a forge and a cannon is not beeing greedy and reqired to be save vs this. Also not getting a nexus before 6min is. But in none of these threads the"decent protoss" gives a replay or a vod, which hint to total theorycraft when the same thing ("I hold it all the time, oops sorry I have no replay") happens in all threads. Even in this thread, OP claims his build works but can't post a replay because of a strange reason.
I don't save replays. If this was such a good strat why isn't it ALL YOU SEE at high level play?
Because it's easily stoppable, if you don't cut corners.
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On May 23 2011 02:58 lilky wrote: The roach-ling timing push that zerg players do doesnt follow that strict of a guideline/build. Unlike a 4gate, which will always hit at 6 minutes with 6 protoss units, the zerg can add little nuances that change the timing/strength/speed of the attack.
For example, he zerg player may decide to begin the attack when he has 20 drones. Instead, he may decide to attack at 35 drones. He may decide to go ling heavy or he might go roach heavy. Also, depending on the map and how good his injects/macro are, there can be a huge difference in the number of units you see attacking and at what time they attack.
That being said, i think a lot of people dont quite understand how strong this push is...ive played zerg players attack with upwards of 15 roaches and 20 speedlings at the 8 minute mark with the zerg player on 30 drones....2 cannons and a few sentries isnt going to stop that kind of force
Here you go,
At 8 minutes you should have WAY more then '' few sentries '' 8 min is quite late and you should have at least 6-7 sentries with high energy and some good amount of stalkers. no need for 2 canons, 1 is enough to hold this. check-out whitera he holds it frequently. I'm top master and i hold this with 1 canon, clutch forcefield and good micro !
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On May 23 2011 01:09 SC2TheDroid wrote: Im sorry, but at the pro level dropping a 3 gate sentry expand the nexus goes down at 5:48, as I understand it? Warp finishes about the same time (around 6 minutes), and its quite possible to have 5 sentries and a zealot at 6:10.
How is it beneficial to have 2 gates over three, and a nexus no earlier? Am I missing something?
2gate expand gets you all those things and also can afford forge+hallucinate in time to easily defend.
You actually could drop the nexus a little earlier, but 2gate or 3gate, you can't possibly defend it vs even a handful of zerglings until you have enough units. The third sentry pops out around 5:45 with the 4th a few seconds behind. I also wanted to avoid planting the nexus TOO early - if a strong attack with an odd timing hits JUST after the nexus finishes, but when the cannons are still 20s or more away, I wanted to keep the option to just cancel the nexus + cannons and retreat to high ground.
And actually, I have a question for anyone who wants to field it. How is it beneficial to have 3 gates over 2? 2 gates will keep up with your gas income, with cooldown time to spare, until you add on the assimilators at the nexus. And the 3rd arrives in time to keep up with your mineral income after building the expansion and low ground wall, right around the time you reach your target number of sentries.
The only ways I could see 3gate >> 2gate are: you want to attack quickly!! meaning you've abandoned your plan to build only sentries and expand or you skip hallucinate altogether, so you can afford 1 more sentry. (actually this is a terrible reason, since there is spare gateway cooldown with just 2 gates and by chronoing a gate 1 time you'd easily be able to keep up with gas production)
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On May 23 2011 01:20 chaopow wrote: This is a pretty good and refined build but I feel there is one problem. Its playing very safe, almost too safe. Sure you can always cancel canons and get minerals back, but this build is counting on the losira attack to happen. Any other build the zerg could be going might affect this. If they are macroing or teching, or waiting for burrow roach or hydras, it could hurt you in the end. I still feel 3gate expand is still the best build overall in PvZ. I prefer to do what minigun does which is the blind canon, a good wall and rely on FF and micro to stay alive.
Some players like to play safe and play well at it, but atleast for me personally, I dont really like it and dont like to give up this tiny edge to the opponent. I'm a Masters Toss.
I see what you're saying, but why does this rely on the attack happening? The build is never cutting probes and spending minimum 4 chronos on them. If the attack doesn't happen, you've 'wasted' 37-75 minerals (not a huge deal, that's less than the cost of a suicide probe considering mining time), and spent 100/100 on hallucinate. 100/100 isn't so cheap, but if it's part of your plan anyways that's obviously a non-issue, and personally I like hallucinate. It's really nice that you can scout his buildings and composition any time you want without waiting for and building observers. Hallucinate is also really nice for scouting ahead of your army while in 'shark mode' so you don't get caught by 32648 speedlings, and also keeps him honest - if he just keeps droning and relying on the fact that you're bluffing, your phoenix will spot it every time and you can move in for the kill. A nice thing about my build is that, if you cancel cannons, you suddenly have an overflow of minerals immediately after scouting him, so you can decide how best to spend those minerals.
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On May 23 2011 02:20 Markwerf wrote: I use a similar build to this all the time and it works quite well for me.
Your build gets a slightly lower probe count but finishes hallucinate a fair bit quicker so you don't ever need to cancel cannons. Also you'll need to spend a few seconds defending without cannons in the cases where you spot his roaches just as they're moving out (rush time < cannon build time).
Mine gets ~1 extra probe but at the cost of wasted minerals in case he's not attacking, and gets the cannons up a little faster in situations where you spot the roaches after 7:10.
Both approaches are valid IMO.
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On May 23 2011 02:58 lilky wrote: The roach-ling timing push that zerg players do doesnt follow that strict of a guideline/build. Unlike a 4gate, which will always hit at 6 minutes with 6 protoss units, the zerg can add little nuances that change the timing/strength/speed of the attack.
For example, he zerg player may decide to begin the attack when he has 20 drones. Instead, he may decide to attack at 35 drones.
Yes, I've thought about this quite a bit. Two solutions come to mind:
1- cancel everything on the low ground that hasn't finished warping in and retreat up the ramp.
2- lay down the forge a fair bit sooner, probably by going forge before nexus. Build 1 cannon around 6:50, in time to defend faster versions, and build the 2nd at 7:10 as planned. You'll need to decide to keep or cancel the 1st cannon when your phoenix is only partway across the map, and you'll have to cancel + rebuild it when your phoenix spots roaches just leaving the main. That's OK because the times it happens, Z has hurt his economy far more than you, and you'll handily stop his attack.
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On May 23 2011 02:17 Minigun wrote: Usually the players are just doing something wrong if they are getting all in'd and losing.
I actually do a fair amount of coaching on this roach/ling subject, and every person asking for help on this subject, has been able to leave the coaching session being able to stop it, but this could work too I guess.
Care to explain more? Is it just down to FF's and sim city? Do you 2 gate expand or 3 gate? Are there specific maps where there's too much space between your ramp and natural that you cant hold with 3 gate expand?
I have moderate success if its a map where you can do like 1-2 ff between your wall and nexus, 1 ff on mineral line and 1 ff behind mineral line where zlings cant get through (or putting my 2nd pylon on low ground there) while having 1 cannon, but sometimes i just muck up. I honestly feel like it relies on perfect or near perfect play to hold which I just lose at least half the time because i can't do it perfectly every game.
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I'm not saying this is or is not a good build as all you're doing is cutting corners to get a faster expansion down.
However, you're third gate is coming out WAY later and you'll have far fewer units than a 3 gate expand. How this makes it safer build vs early zerg pressure is beyond me. Not only that, you will have a heck of a time defending until your cannons do get up, since you have far fewer forcefields/units, and they don't get up until around 7:30.
Imagine I have speedlings camped out at your expansion and waiting for you to push out. How are you going to push out safely with 2 gates to get your expansion down at 5:30?
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On May 23 2011 08:43 murkk wrote: I'm not saying this is or is not a good build as all you're doing is cutting corners to get a faster expansion down.
However, you're third gate is coming out WAY later and you'll have far fewer units than a 3 gate expand. How this makes it safer build vs early zerg pressure is beyond me. Not only that, you will have a heck of a time defending until your cannons do get up, since you have far fewer forcefields/units, and they don't get up until around 7:30.
Imagine I have speedlings camped out at your expansion and waiting for you to push out. How are you going to push out safely with 2 gates to get your expansion down at 5:30?
Bold part is false. Until approx 6:00 when warpgate tech completes, 2gate has the exact same units as a 3gate sentry expand. At 6:10 when the first warpin round occurs, 2gate will have exactly 1 less sentry because of the 100 gas spent on hallucinate. After that, the 2 gates more than keep up with income until the third gate completes. If a 3gate sentry expand researches hallucinate at any time, it will have the exact same number of units as a 2gate sentry expand. Normal 3gate gets 1 sentry a little earlier than my build by delaying hallucinate.
By the way, I said to expand at 5:50 not 5:30.
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On May 23 2011 04:03 Minigun wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 03:43 MrCon wrote:On May 22 2011 19:28 done wrote:On May 22 2011 18:33 FataLe wrote:On May 22 2011 18:25 done wrote: I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo Oh you just ooze knowledge on the matter, don't you.. If it were that easy, which it's not.. you wouldn't be seeing this many threads revolving around a single build order this long after it was introduced mainstream now would you. And then again in every single one of those threads some decent protoss player comes in and tells everyone how easy it is to hold this off with just decent building, some micro and not beeing too greedy... Just listen to Minigun for example, he served the last one of these threads >.< Edit: for everyone who is not getting it, building a forge and a cannon is not beeing greedy and reqired to be save vs this. Also not getting a nexus before 6min is. But in none of these threads the"decent protoss" gives a replay or a vod, which hint to total theorycraft when the same thing ("I hold it all the time, oops sorry I have no replay") happens in all threads. Even in this thread, OP claims his build works but can't post a replay because of a strange reason. I don't save replays. If this was such a good strat why isn't it ALL YOU SEE at high level play? Because it's easily stoppable, if you don't cut corners. Well, I'd say we see this in 33% of pro games,, perhaps 25%. And it's succesful every time up to today. edit : 25% is an exageration. Let's say we still see this very often, the point being, it still haven't been defended on TV. I'm sure it's defendable and actually I agree with your posts on howto defend it. Perhaps op build works too. But the fact that we still have zero replay of this when everyone ask for replays since 2 weeks hint us that it's not that easy.
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On May 23 2011 09:27 MrCon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 04:03 Minigun wrote:On May 23 2011 03:43 MrCon wrote:On May 22 2011 19:28 done wrote:On May 22 2011 18:33 FataLe wrote:On May 22 2011 18:25 done wrote: I absolutely hate how every low player just asumes 3gate expand is not good anymore... In fact it holds this losira push off just fine every single time the protoss is not greedy as hell, and it sets the zerg really far behind in tech and economy.
FFS just build a wall and force field the holes for 2 times while building stalker/zealots and you just got an easy win... dunno why people whine about it, its not even that strong a timing imo Oh you just ooze knowledge on the matter, don't you.. If it were that easy, which it's not.. you wouldn't be seeing this many threads revolving around a single build order this long after it was introduced mainstream now would you. And then again in every single one of those threads some decent protoss player comes in and tells everyone how easy it is to hold this off with just decent building, some micro and not beeing too greedy... Just listen to Minigun for example, he served the last one of these threads >.< Edit: for everyone who is not getting it, building a forge and a cannon is not beeing greedy and reqired to be save vs this. Also not getting a nexus before 6min is. But in none of these threads the"decent protoss" gives a replay or a vod, which hint to total theorycraft when the same thing ("I hold it all the time, oops sorry I have no replay") happens in all threads. Even in this thread, OP claims his build works but can't post a replay because of a strange reason. I don't save replays. If this was such a good strat why isn't it ALL YOU SEE at high level play? Because it's easily stoppable, if you don't cut corners. Well, I'd say we see this in 33% of pro games,, perhaps 25%. And it's succesful every time up to today.
lol no it's not successful 100% of the time
if you had a build that wins you "100% of games" wouldn't you use it every game?
It works so much at the lower levels because, timing, is EXTREMELY important in holding off certain things. If you don't have perfect forcefields, or perfect timing, yeah this build is hard as hell to hold.
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I edited, I wanted to say it was successful everytime it was used on TV (nasl/GSL and other tourneys)
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On May 23 2011 08:00 Keilah wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 02:20 Markwerf wrote: I use a similar build to this all the time and it works quite well for me. Your build gets a slightly lower probe count but finishes hallucinate a fair bit quicker so you don't ever need to cancel cannons. Also you'll need to spend a few seconds defending without cannons in the cases where you spot his roaches just as they're moving out (rush time < cannon build time). Mine gets ~1 extra probe but at the cost of wasted minerals in case he's not attacking, and gets the cannons up a little faster in situations where you spot the roaches after 7:10. Both approaches are valid IMO.
I started out with practically your build but came to the conclusion 3 boosts on nexus instead of 4 is simply more efficient. It makes the build smoother by letting WG finish at exactly the same time as your 3rd sentry pops (whereas your build has to wait 10 secs) and it works smoother with pylon timings. Chrono boosts after the third on the nexus are generally a waste anyways, you are getting close to saturation by that point and chrono on tech or gateway is almost always more efficient. If chronoing tech allowes you to safely put your nexus 10s earlier it was already more efficient..
Just check the replay I provided earlier as that way the build is very efficient, I only need to have the forge a bit earlier which can be done by getting another sentry instead of a stalker.
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On May 23 2011 09:03 Keilah wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 08:43 murkk wrote: I'm not saying this is or is not a good build as all you're doing is cutting corners to get a faster expansion down.
However, you're third gate is coming out WAY later and you'll have far fewer units than a 3 gate expand. How this makes it safer build vs early zerg pressure is beyond me. Not only that, you will have a heck of a time defending until your cannons do get up, since you have far fewer forcefields/units, and they don't get up until around 7:30.
Imagine I have speedlings camped out at your expansion and waiting for you to push out. How are you going to push out safely with 2 gates to get your expansion down at 5:30? Bold part is false. Until approx 6:00 when warpgate tech completes, 2gate has the exact same units as a 3gate sentry expand. At 6:10 when the first warpin round occurs, 2gate will have exactly 1 less sentry because of the 100 gas spent on hallucinate. After that, the 2 gates more than keep up with income until the third gate completes. If a 3gate sentry expand researches hallucinate at any time, it will have the exact same number of units as a 2gate sentry expand. Normal 3gate gets 1 sentry a little earlier than my build by delaying hallucinate. By the way, I said to expand at 5:50 not 5:30.
So what you're saying is the bold part is true. You will have less units than a 3 gate for early zerg pressure before 10 minutes, and are far more vulnerable. Your guide's mission statement says differently.
I can see exactly zero cases where this build has more survivability than 3 gate expand. In fact, you're actually baiting zerg to come kill you early game as most players will note the early expansion (meaning no gates).
When does you're 3rd gate get up an operational (since i have no replay to go by)? By the sounds of it, it's between 8:30 and 9 minutes if you lay down 2x cannons.
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How about this one? GreatFields by Minigun
Minigun ForceFields Against Roach/Linghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAEYzFxvAV0
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On May 23 2011 09:48 murkk wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 09:03 Keilah wrote:On May 23 2011 08:43 murkk wrote: I'm not saying this is or is not a good build as all you're doing is cutting corners to get a faster expansion down.
However, you're third gate is coming out WAY later and you'll have far fewer units than a 3 gate expand. How this makes it safer build vs early zerg pressure is beyond me. Not only that, you will have a heck of a time defending until your cannons do get up, since you have far fewer forcefields/units, and they don't get up until around 7:30.
Imagine I have speedlings camped out at your expansion and waiting for you to push out. How are you going to push out safely with 2 gates to get your expansion down at 5:30? Bold part is false. Until approx 6:00 when warpgate tech completes, 2gate has the exact same units as a 3gate sentry expand. At 6:10 when the first warpin round occurs, 2gate will have exactly 1 less sentry because of the 100 gas spent on hallucinate. After that, the 2 gates more than keep up with income until the third gate completes. If a 3gate sentry expand researches hallucinate at any time, it will have the exact same number of units as a 2gate sentry expand. Normal 3gate gets 1 sentry a little earlier than my build by delaying hallucinate. By the way, I said to expand at 5:50 not 5:30. So what you're saying is the bold part is true. You will have less units than a 3 gate for early zerg pressure before 10 minutes, and are far more vulnerable. Your guide's mission statement says differently. I can see exactly zero cases where this build has more survivability than 3 gate expand. In fact, you're actually baiting zerg to come kill you early game as most players will note the early expansion (meaning no gates). When does you're 3rd gate get up an operational (since i have no replay to go by)? By the sounds of it, it's between 8:30 and 9 minutes if you lay down 2x cannons.
You said the 2gate would have far fewer units. I pointed out that, until warp, it has the same, after warp, it gets 1 less sentry than a 3gate with no hallucinate, after 3gate gets hallucinate both builds have the exact same number of units.
If having 1 sentry less/more at 6:10 makes all the difference, fine. It might, but I kinda doubt it.
I forget the exact timing, but yeah the third gate is complete and in warpgate mode around 8:40.
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On May 23 2011 09:40 Markwerf wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 08:00 Keilah wrote:On May 23 2011 02:20 Markwerf wrote: I use a similar build to this all the time and it works quite well for me. Your build gets a slightly lower probe count but finishes hallucinate a fair bit quicker so you don't ever need to cancel cannons. Also you'll need to spend a few seconds defending without cannons in the cases where you spot his roaches just as they're moving out (rush time < cannon build time). Mine gets ~1 extra probe but at the cost of wasted minerals in case he's not attacking, and gets the cannons up a little faster in situations where you spot the roaches after 7:10. Both approaches are valid IMO. I started out with practically your build but came to the conclusion 3 boosts on nexus instead of 4 is simply more efficient. It makes the build smoother by letting WG finish at exactly the same time as your 3rd sentry pops (whereas your build has to wait 10 secs) and it works smoother with pylon timings. Chrono boosts after the third on the nexus are generally a waste anyways, you are getting close to saturation by that point and chrono on tech or gateway is almost always more efficient. If chronoing tech allowes you to safely put your nexus 10s earlier it was already more efficient.. Just check the replay I provided earlier as that way the build is very efficient, I only need to have the forge a bit earlier which can be done by getting another sentry instead of a stalker.
Your way might be better, seems to me they're very close. Note: -I lay down the expansion nexus when the third sentry is born (with the 4th coming in seconds), not when warpgate completes. When warpgate does complete, I just barely have the gas to do my warpins. So, getting warpgate 10s faster wouldn't give me my sentries or expansion 10s faster. -I DO notice and dislike that my build has several seconds of idle gateway time, but it more than keeps up with gas income so unless you're building units other than sentries I don't see how you can avoid idle time. -The 4th probe chrono happens when you have 22/23 probes, so yeah we're past the 16 probes on minerals mark, but it still helps. Having ~1 extra probe to transfer to the expo is a small bonus. It's not a big deal, but every little bit helps.
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Well, I just watched the VOD posted and I have a few things to say.
-First off, mini opens with zealot -> stalker, which is fine but will screw with timings and such compared to zealot -> sentry. So my very next point might be only because of this opening. -Mini lays down the expansion nexus at 6:05, 15s later than I recommend. -Mini gets pressured by lings at 6:20, and he holds with 1 sentry, 1 near-dead stalker, and 3 warpin reinforcement sentries, losing the stalker and 2 sentries. Surely the same pressure with 8 extra lings (which mini killed earlier) could be held by 1 zlot and 5-6 sentries. -Mini loses loads of stuff in the battle. The first cannon is canceled or killed, he loses (or should lose) a bunch of probes at 8:10 ingame time (can't tell with low res but i think the lings milled about aimlessly), he loses 2 pylons, the forge, a good few military units, and a few times there were opportunities for lings to kill several probes (not sure if it happened or not from low-res). He also ends up building 4 cannons (3 and 1 cancelled?), two of which are placed farther back than ideal, and the last one gets killed. And this is from a pro gamer! With my build, you can have worse micro and lose less. -there is LOADS of idle gateway time. In particular, all 3 gates sit idle for ~10 waiting for warp to complete. There's also a lot of idle time right around when the attack hits (watch the warpgate counter in lower right). What's the point of a third gate you can't afford? It sacrifices a faster forge for nothing.
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On May 23 2011 10:19 Keilah wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 09:48 murkk wrote:On May 23 2011 09:03 Keilah wrote:On May 23 2011 08:43 murkk wrote: I'm not saying this is or is not a good build as all you're doing is cutting corners to get a faster expansion down.
However, you're third gate is coming out WAY later and you'll have far fewer units than a 3 gate expand. How this makes it safer build vs early zerg pressure is beyond me. Not only that, you will have a heck of a time defending until your cannons do get up, since you have far fewer forcefields/units, and they don't get up until around 7:30.
Imagine I have speedlings camped out at your expansion and waiting for you to push out. How are you going to push out safely with 2 gates to get your expansion down at 5:30? Bold part is false. Until approx 6:00 when warpgate tech completes, 2gate has the exact same units as a 3gate sentry expand. At 6:10 when the first warpin round occurs, 2gate will have exactly 1 less sentry because of the 100 gas spent on hallucinate. After that, the 2 gates more than keep up with income until the third gate completes. If a 3gate sentry expand researches hallucinate at any time, it will have the exact same number of units as a 2gate sentry expand. Normal 3gate gets 1 sentry a little earlier than my build by delaying hallucinate. By the way, I said to expand at 5:50 not 5:30. So what you're saying is the bold part is true. You will have less units than a 3 gate for early zerg pressure before 10 minutes, and are far more vulnerable. Your guide's mission statement says differently. I can see exactly zero cases where this build has more survivability than 3 gate expand. In fact, you're actually baiting zerg to come kill you early game as most players will note the early expansion (meaning no gates). When does you're 3rd gate get up an operational (since i have no replay to go by)? By the sounds of it, it's between 8:30 and 9 minutes if you lay down 2x cannons. You said the 2gate would have far fewer units. I pointed out that, until warp, it has the same, after warp, it gets 1 less sentry than a 3gate with no hallucinate, after 3gate gets hallucinate both builds have the exact same number of units. If having 1 sentry less/more at 6:10 makes all the difference, fine. It might, but I kinda doubt it. I forget the exact timing, but yeah the third gate is complete and in warpgate mode around 8:40.
You're not just 1 unit less at the first warp in. You also one gateway less, and are a long ways away from building more gateways. At 8:30, that's a substantial number of units.
The initial post said this was a guide to help people who were having trouble overcome zerg aggression on 3 gate expand. It was to make it so you don't need to rely on forcefields as much. If anything, you need much better forcefields and have a greater chance of just straight up dying to any zerg early aggression.
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Look, just try it, you'll see. Even with just two gates you still have idle gateway time. A third early gate doesn't get you more units, it gets you more idle gateway time. The only thing that costs you any units is hallucinate. If your normal 3gate gets hallucinate anyways then both builds will get the same number of units by 9:00-10:00. 2gate trades 1-2 units during the roachling attack in exchange for hallucinate and 2 completed cannons. Would you rather have 9 units, 3 gates, and a cannon halfway warped in? Or 8 units, 2 gates, a third gate halfway warped in, and 2 cannons completed?
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3 gate still works for me at high masters, i've been doing the blind 2 cannons just because the losira attack is so common and sometimes i cancel one. At the very least they allow you to push out and put some pressure on without worrying about backstabs.If you stay a little behind your cannons and forcefield well (focus on keeping the lings off you) then you should be ok. I defend something like 80% of these pushes successfully and then counter push with immortals + 5 gate and win as they try to catch up.
edit: the minigun video is a poor example, losing 2 sentries and a stalker to speedlings cripples your ability to defend this build, any gains/losses will snowball vs this sort of aggression.
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On May 23 2011 11:53 Keilah wrote: Look, just try it, you'll see. Even with just two gates you still have idle gateway time. A third early gate doesn't get you more units, it gets you more idle gateway time. The only thing that costs you any units is hallucinate. If your normal 3gate gets hallucinate anyways both then both builds will get the same number of units by 9:00-10:00. 2gate trades 1-2 units during the roachling attack in exchange for hallucinate and 2 completed cannons. Would you rather have 9 units, 3 gates, and a cannon halfway warped in? Or 8 units, 2 gates, a third gate halfway warped in, and 2 cannons completed?
2nd option please. Murkk hasn't figured it out yet.
I am starting to practice this build because roach/ling all-in is surprisingly popular at my level (1000M) in every map + position that is not long.
Pretty easy to follow as well. Thanks. I love learning these new builds.
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To the people who say thanks, you're welcome =]
I'm not a bad player, but to be honest I enjoy sorting out these sorts of puzzles even more than I enjoy playing, so it was a labour of love =)
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Ohh...so thats y I've been losing every PvZ in Masters lately...fucking losira.
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On May 23 2011 11:53 Keilah wrote: Look, just try it, you'll see. Even with just two gates you still have idle gateway time. A third early gate doesn't get you more units, it gets you more idle gateway time. The only thing that costs you any units is hallucinate. If your normal 3gate gets hallucinate anyways then both builds will get the same number of units by 9:00-10:00. 2gate trades 1-2 units during the roachling attack in exchange for hallucinate and 2 completed cannons. Would you rather have 9 units, 3 gates, and a cannon halfway warped in? Or 8 units, 2 gates, a third gate halfway warped in, and 2 cannons completed?
I'll give it a shot with my practice partner, given those timings, but I can't count how many times my second warp in has saved my butt or allowed me to break out against heavy ling play. It sounds like I'm sacrificing survivability and utility to put a lot of pressure on a zerg who's just macroing for the chance to stop one specific type of cheese with cannons near the 8 minute mark.
When I'm being all-in attacked I tend to actually use the three warpgates to live. And you should be able to produce out of them even with chrono if that's what you need to do.
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I think you'll like it. Believe me, you are not sacrificing survivability. On top of that, a blind cannon costs 150min compared to 75min for 2 cancelled cannons, so while your attack will be slightly later, it will also be a little stronger. And maybe most importantly, how can you possibly know that it's safe to attack after expanding with your 3gate army around 8:00-9:30 if you don't have hallucinate? You can't!
PS - Losira attack is not cheese, it's not like you instawin if he aborts the attack and camps outside your expo. He still has a decent drone count and units, he's just behind in tech.
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I don't get why you would chrono boost warp gate tech instead of the sentries/probes.
Due to the sentry build time buff you're not getting that much improvement in terms of build times by rushing out your warp gate tech, whereas you could have more units by chronoing the gateways, or a better economy by chrono boosting the nexus.
Seems strange to me to chrono boost an upgrade 3 times that doesn't really affect your ability to hold off aggression (obviously get it, just the difference between chronoing it and not chronoing it).
Kind of makes me facepalm every time I see a protoss do it in pvz when expanding :\
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On May 23 2011 13:03 Keilah wrote: I think you'll like it. Believe me, you are not sacrificing survivability. On top of that, a blind cannon costs 150min compared to 75min for 2 cancelled cannons, so while your attack will be slightly later, it will also be a little stronger. And maybe most importantly, how can you possibly know that it's safe to attack after expanding with your 3gate army around 8:00-9:30 if you don't have hallucinate? You can't!
PS - Losira attack is not cheese, it's not like you instawin if he aborts the attack and camps outside your expo. He still has a decent drone count and units, he's just behind in tech.
I don't think you understand the fundamental difference between cheese and an all-in
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On May 23 2011 13:03 Keilah wrote: I think you'll like it. Believe me, you are not sacrificing survivability. On top of that, a blind cannon costs 150min compared to 75min for 2 cancelled cannons, so while your attack will be slightly later, it will also be a little stronger. And maybe most importantly, how can you possibly know that it's safe to attack after expanding with your 3gate army around 8:00-9:30 if you don't have hallucinate? You can't!
If I can, I like to drone scout his natural and see his saturation at around 6:30 or so. Otherwise, yeah, you need to use hallucinate. Then again, a lot of times you crush a lot of lings early with your sentries and just know you can at least push out and force him to keep making units. Forcefields allow me to retreat as well if needed.
I don't ladder at all and just practice with some teammates. So when I tell them to be aggressive, they don't stick to one type of cheese. Sure, heavy roaches at 8-10m is tough but they like to do a lot of two base ling attacks that is just nasty. Two gating it with no cannons up... ewww. I'll have to see though.
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On May 23 2011 13:14 -orb- wrote: I don't get why you would chrono boost warp gate tech instead of the sentries/probes.
Due to the sentry build time buff you're not getting that much improvement in terms of build times by rushing out your warp gate tech, whereas you could have more units by chronoing the gateways, or a better economy by chrono boosting the nexus.
Seems strange to me to chrono boost an upgrade 3 times that doesn't really affect your ability to hold off aggression (obviously get it, just the difference between chronoing it and not chronoing it).
Kind of makes me facepalm every time I see a protoss do it in pvz when expanding :\
a) I do chrono the nexus quite a lot b) Chronoboost cannot give you more sentries, you are limited by gas not gateway cooldown c) Chronoboosting 3 times makes the research complete at the same time as gateway #2 finishes a sentry d) If you don't chronoboost warpgate, hallucinate starts and completes later, and getting hallucinate in time to keep or cancel your cannons is the entire point of this build.
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On May 23 2011 13:15 -orb- wrote:I don't think you understand the fundamental difference between cheese and an all-in
Perhaps you could enlighten me? I always thought that cheese was something that would probably make you win if unscouted, and probably make you lose if scouted (or blind countered). If you have a way to ensure it won't be scouted (slings), you can hardly call that cheese.
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This is a great anti-roachling timing all in build. But however, its just like our Zerg's anti 4-gate build, its great against 4gate, and pretty much screws you over economically if you face other build (though i think it might not screw you over as much as the anti-4gate but w/e), and zerg can be really ambiguous about their build, you don' t know whats gonna pop out of those larvae.
PS: Actually Allica did put down a cannon as soon as the nexus was done/80%, and i seriously doubt that you can have better FF than allica, also, as i remembered, 3gate > 2gate. (Not to be taken seriously.)
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On May 23 2011 13:17 murkk wrote:
they like to do a lot of two base ling attacks that is just nasty. Two gating it with no cannons up... ewww. I'll have to see though.
It occurs to me that if you see a lot of speedlings like this, you know by default that the roaches won't be coming at 7:30-8:30, so you don't need to chronoboost hallucinate. Use the chronoboost on gateways instead, and consider cancelling hallucinate (i wouldn't).
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On May 23 2011 13:20 Keilah wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 13:14 -orb- wrote: I don't get why you would chrono boost warp gate tech instead of the sentries/probes.
Due to the sentry build time buff you're not getting that much improvement in terms of build times by rushing out your warp gate tech, whereas you could have more units by chronoing the gateways, or a better economy by chrono boosting the nexus.
Seems strange to me to chrono boost an upgrade 3 times that doesn't really affect your ability to hold off aggression (obviously get it, just the difference between chronoing it and not chronoing it).
Kind of makes me facepalm every time I see a protoss do it in pvz when expanding :\ a) I do chrono the nexus quite a lot b) Chronoboost cannot give you more sentries, you are limited by gas not gateway cooldown c) Chronoboosting 3 times makes the research complete at the same time as gateway #2 finishes a sentry d) If you don't chronoboost warpgate, hallucinate starts and completes later, and getting hallucinate in time to keep or cancel your cannons is the entire point of this build.
Actually I've been using halluc before warpgate builds pretty often and it works really well.
You might be limited by gas for sentries but you can add in zealots/stalkers if you feel the need depending on the zerg build, and since you get those sentries out earlier from chronoing them you can have an easier time defending early speedling harassment that might try to block the expansion/etc.
I've actually be experimenting as well with builds where I get my 2nd gas before the cyber core starts. This way when you chrono out your sentries you'll have more gas ready and you'll get more sentries out for the expansion.... I haven't tried some kind of direct side-by-side comparison but I feel like this would be a lot more efficient and give you a better army while you expand than chronoing warpgate tech (which gets you almost no advantage at that point in the game).
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On May 23 2011 13:27 TolEranceNA wrote: This is a great anti-roachling timing all in build. But however, its just like our Zerg's anti 4-gate build, its great against 4gate, and pretty much screws you over economically if you face other build (though i think it might not screw you over as much as the anti-4gate but w/e), and zerg can be really ambiguous about their build, you don' t know whats gonna pop out of those larvae.
Not really? It's exactly the same as a standard 3-gate expand, but you get the third gate a bit later, and build two cannons a bit sooner. If you scout that he's all drones or w/e, you cancel the cannons and are actually 75 minerals AHEAD of a protoss who blind built a useless cannon, or you are 37 minerals behind if you choose to keep a single cannon for defense.
Getting hallucinate is required to punish greedy play before observers, because without it you are in the dark as to whether he's being greedy, and it's unsafe to move out early with that many sentries. How do you know he's not waiting to ambush you, unless you have hallucinate or observers?
So yeah, if you think a standard 3-gate expand screws you over economically, then so does this.
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On May 23 2011 09:40 Markwerf wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 08:00 Keilah wrote:On May 23 2011 02:20 Markwerf wrote: I use a similar build to this all the time and it works quite well for me. Your build gets a slightly lower probe count but finishes hallucinate a fair bit quicker so you don't ever need to cancel cannons. Also you'll need to spend a few seconds defending without cannons in the cases where you spot his roaches just as they're moving out (rush time < cannon build time). Mine gets ~1 extra probe but at the cost of wasted minerals in case he's not attacking, and gets the cannons up a little faster in situations where you spot the roaches after 7:10. Both approaches are valid IMO. I started out with practically your build but came to the conclusion 3 boosts on nexus instead of 4 is simply more efficient. It makes the build smoother by letting WG finish at exactly the same time as your 3rd sentry pops (whereas your build has to wait 10 secs) and it works smoother with pylon timings. Chrono boosts after the third on the nexus are generally a waste anyways, you are getting close to saturation by that point and chrono on tech or gateway is almost always more efficient. If chronoing tech allowes you to safely put your nexus 10s earlier it was already more efficient.. Just check the replay I provided earlier as that way the build is very efficient, I only need to have the forge a bit earlier which can be done by getting another sentry instead of a stalker.
No, you couldn't be more wrong. You're saying chrono boosts on a nexus after the first 3 are generally a waste... are you serious right now? You say you'll be nearing saturation? And that chronoing tech or a gateway is more efficient?
Do you not realize you're about to have a 2nd base up that is going to need saturation? It takes 24 probes to fully saturate an 8 mineral field base (not including the 6 drones for gas saturation). That means for a chrono on a nexus to "not be efficient" you'd essentially have to already have 60 probes for your two bases. Unless you're fully saturated and not expanding soon it's almost always an efficient move (maybe not the right move since you need chrono on other things to stay alive/make timing attacks/etc, but efficient for economy nonetheless) to chrono probes from a nexus.
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On May 23 2011 13:35 Keilah wrote:Show nested quote +On May 23 2011 13:27 TolEranceNA wrote: This is a great anti-roachling timing all in build. But however, its just like our Zerg's anti 4-gate build, its great against 4gate, and pretty much screws you over economically if you face other build (though i think it might not screw you over as much as the anti-4gate but w/e), and zerg can be really ambiguous about their build, you don' t know whats gonna pop out of those larvae. Not really? It's exactly the same as a standard 3-gate expand, but you get the third gate a bit later, and build two cannons a bit sooner. If you scout that he's all drones or w/e, you cancel the cannons and are actually 75 minerals AHEAD of a protoss who blind built a useless cannon, or you are 37 minerals behind if you choose to keep a single cannon for defense. Getting hallucinate is required to punish greedy play before observers, because without it you are in the dark as to whether he's being greedy, and it's unsafe to move out early with that many sentries. How do you know he's not waiting to ambush you, unless you have hallucinate or observers? So yeah, if you think a standard 3-gate expand screws you over economically, then so does this.
I really hope you finish reading the passage, especially the PS.
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On May 23 2011 09:53 setmeal wrote: How about this one? GreatFields by Minigun
Minigun ForceFields Against Roach/Linghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAEYzFxvAV0
So fraking impresive defense. Still, the Z missmicro his roaches pretty much.
Anyways, this build is so riduculous that any mid diamond can execute it, and as P you need GM forcefields to defend it?? WTF.
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On May 23 2011 13:55 TolEranceNA wrote:
I really hope you finish reading the passage, especially the PS.
I did, but tbh it's really confusing. You need to rephrase that because I have no idea what point you're trying to make. Alicia made a late cannon and has good FF and 3gates > 2gates? And it's not to be taken seriously? Whaaaaaaaaaaa?
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i tried this out today in a bo3 vs a zerg buddy.
i've realized that if you are so much as 10 seconds late on your timings then you WILL die to the roach/ling losira timing push. the cannons are just shy of completion, not enough units etc etc.
honestly maybe with some refinement/work on my part i can get this build to fly (personally). but for right now i see vulnerabilities, and i'd honestly prefer to just go 3 gates hold off the pressure and then expo when safe (later or not its better than early and getting denied)
edit: that rep with mini vs that dude above me, i feel like i'm in that exact same spot when losira timing hits, and you have to have extremely good unit control to hold off the push. i feel like i can hold it off but only for so long until it floods and i've lost sentries or w/e. i have pretty good control, but not GM control like mini to make this viable.
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10s are a lot, don't be late =]
If you're a lower level player and not confident in your ability to execute smoothly, try placing the forge before the nexus. It's not optimal but you're guaranteed to get the cannons up in time. You could also throw down an extra chronoboost on the core to give you +10s if you do something silly like start warpgate tech late.
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added a replay, not very good, more/better will be coming, I promise =]
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I think I would like a replay where the attack actually comes and you hold it.
not to disparage your build, it sounds solid, but the replay in the OP was essentially just you beating a relatively less skilled Zerg.
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agreed. I'm still waiting for someone to try it... maybe I should stop telling them in advance that I'm sentry expanding. They must know I've got a devious plan for stopping the attack ^_^
Updated with a roach/ling attack, still haven't faced a competent player unfortunately. Someone from TL PM me and we'll run it a few times.
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On May 23 2011 10:59 Keilah wrote: Well, I just watched the VOD posted and I have a few things to say.
-First off, mini opens with zealot -> stalker, which is fine but will screw with timings and such compared to zealot -> sentry. So my very next point might be only because of this opening. -Mini lays down the expansion nexus at 6:05, 15s later than I recommend. -Mini gets pressured by lings at 6:20, and he holds with 1 sentry, 1 near-dead stalker, and 3 warpin reinforcement sentries, losing the stalker and 2 sentries. Surely the same pressure with 8 extra lings (which mini killed earlier) could be held by 1 zlot and 5-6 sentries. -Mini loses loads of stuff in the battle. The first cannon is canceled or killed, he loses (or should lose) a bunch of probes at 8:10 ingame time (can't tell with low res but i think the lings milled about aimlessly), he loses 2 pylons, the forge, a good few military units, and a few times there were opportunities for lings to kill several probes (not sure if it happened or not from low-res). He also ends up building 4 cannons (3 and 1 cancelled?), two of which are placed farther back than ideal, and the last one gets killed. And this is from a pro gamer! With my build, you can have worse micro and lose less. -there is LOADS of idle gateway time. In particular, all 3 gates sit idle for ~10 waiting for warp to complete. There's also a lot of idle time right around when the attack hits (watch the warpgate counter in lower right). What's the point of a third gate you can't afford? It sacrifices a faster forge for nothing.
was my all means not perfect execution for sure, but it just goes to show you how easy this is to stop without cutting corners
IMAGINE, if I had not lost those sentries, and it wasn't the shortest possible rush distance, and I had put the cannon a bit more in the back
it would have been easy as cake to hold
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I was losing every game zerg went roach/ling on me and have not lost to it since using this build. I could care less if im down 75 minerals from cancelling cannons. Thanks OP!!
I'll go back to 3gate expand if i turn gosu over night
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On May 23 2011 09:53 setmeal wrote: How about this one? GreatFields by Minigun
Minigun ForceFields Against Roach/Linghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAEYzFxvAV0
Just... Wow......
Protoss is not op... Minigun is op...
The first time the zerg showed up with roach ling = I woulda been screwed.. I can't believe how good that forcefield placement was man... That was incredible.
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On May 24 2011 02:07 Minigun wrote:
IMAGINE, if I had not lost those sentries, and it wasn't the shortest possible rush distance, and I had put the cannon a bit more in the back
Well, you lost the sentries in exchange for killing lings.
Anyways, like I say, whatever works for you.
No matter what though, I'm 95% confident the third gate should be built later than the nexus, you can go gate, gate, nexus, forge, gateway, cannon, cannon and the first cannon and the gateway will be up in time for the attack, the second cannon will be a bit delayed but if that's fine then all's well. In fact this might be really nice - you can skip hallucinate or get it late, and cancel that second cannon at 39/40 if you don't see roaches by 8:10 or whatever. By making this small change you still have one cannon COMPLETED at the time of the attack and get the third gate pretty quick. If you research hallucinate, 2gates keeps up with gas income, if not, throw a single chrono on the initial gateway and you've kept up with your gas.
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BTW guys, I played a couple obs metalopolis games against a zerg roughly as skilled as me, I asked him to do the roach/ling attack and I learned a few things. 1) even with 2 cannons, you still need a good walloff. FFing roaches AND lings away from your cannon without a walloff wastes loads of FF. First time through, I had no wall and DIED. 2) Don't skimp on sentries even though you have 2 cannons. On metal cross positions I spent 200 energy on hallucinates to check both paths, that obv cuts into your FF energy. I don't really like sentries so much (500ms latency makes it hard to FF well), so I tried to cut at 6. Ran out of FF near the end of the attack, still held it with the good wall no prob though. 3) Assuming you have a zealot, don't leave it with your sentries and stalkers, he's useless behind the wall. Put him in the natural probe line, 9/10 the lings are going to run around the wall and be over there during the battle. 4) If you can avoid putting pylons in the walloff, do it. If it's necessary, try to place it as near the cannon as possible to make it harder to snipe. No reason I can see for it to be adjacent to the ramp.
If people want, I can post that replay, but the first game was me vs some noob terran. The second and third are the interesting ones. Unfortunately because of the nature of the game, the ingame clock is incorrect.
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On May 24 2011 09:06 Keilah wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2011 02:07 Minigun wrote:
IMAGINE, if I had not lost those sentries, and it wasn't the shortest possible rush distance, and I had put the cannon a bit more in the back
Well, you lost the sentries in exchange for killing lings. Anyways, like I say, whatever works for you. No matter what though, I'm 95% confident the third gate should be built later than the nexus, you can go gate, gate, nexus, forge, gateway, cannon, cannon and the first cannon and the gateway will be up in time for the attack, the second cannon will be a bit delayed but if that's fine then all's well. In fact this might be really nice - you can skip hallucinate or get it late, and cancel that second cannon at 39/40 if you don't see roaches by 8:10 or whatever. By making this small change you still have one cannon COMPLETED at the time of the attack and get the third gate pretty quick. If you research hallucinate, 2gates keeps up with gas income, if not, throw a single chrono on the initial gateway and you've kept up with your gas.
I think Minigun didn't mind losing a couple of sentries because he knew the zerg possibly could've not have that many drones (game sense, lots of zerg unit --> few drones) while Minigun almost constantly produced probes (decision-making, cutting probes to get out some units+buildings for defense and sim-city) and had a great economy in comparison to the zerg.
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With only 2 gates, your opponent can deny your expo for a very long time with just speedlings and drone behind his pressure. You are also completely screwed against any kind of expo-cancel, 1 base all-in without the 3rd gate. Even if your build might have better odds against the roach/speedling attack recently popularized by losira, you're just playing the metagame and relying on your opponent not massing speedlings early game.
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On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote: With only 2 gates, your opponent can deny your expo for a very long time with just speedlings and drone behind his pressure. You are also completely screwed against any kind of expo-cancel, 1 base all-in without the 3rd gate. Even if your build might have better odds against the roach/speedling attack recently popularized by losira, you're just playing the metagame and relying on your opponent not massing speedlings early game.
I think this build is somewhat map-dependant. Mainly it depends on how far the natural nexus is from the ramp because it has a good sentry count. If you die to speedlings even though you're camping close to the bottom of the ramp with a small simcity set-up, you probably didn't FF properly. For example on xel'naga I would go 3 gates into expo simply because of how open and far from the ramp it is, in addition to getting a blind cannon. On LT though it's fine because you can poke out and defend the nexus without leaving the safety of the ramp.
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On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote: With only 2 gates, your opponent can deny your expo for a very long time with just speedlings and drone behind his pressure. You are also completely screwed against any kind of expo-cancel, 1 base all-in without the 3rd gate. Even if your build might have better odds against the roach/speedling attack recently popularized by losira, you're just playing the metagame and relying on your opponent not massing speedlings early game.
If you do get attacked by speedlings, do you start warping in zlots or stalkers, or is it still pure sentry?
Also I did go over 2 options for dealing with earlier roach-ling allins: 1)cancel your nexus and retreat up the ramp, you are both equally slowed down 2)go forge before nexus and build a single cannon earlier, cutting economy in exchange for safety vs crazy variants
Can 3 gates with zero cannons hold the expansion vs expo cancel?
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On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote:relying on your opponent not massing speedlings early game.
who even does that?
The last time I saw that was dimaga vs whitera in some match months ago and dimaga lost hilariously to just a standard zealot sentry defense. That's just a stupid cheese, sacrificing A METRIC FUCKTON of economy on the offchance that the Protoss is stupid enough to let the lings do damage.
Zerg doesn't work like "i'm gonna pressure a little bit off 18 drones and then drone-whore", at that drone count you either commit to an attack and win or you lose.
Spamming speedlings without scouting what the P does might be a soft counter to this strategy but it's so bad, rarely done and dies to so many other strategies (namely all the other standard ones) that you can safely ignore it contemplating this build.
On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote: You are also completely screwed against any kind of expo-cancel, 1 base all-in without the 3rd gate.
Just cancel the Nexus, I'm sorry to say but I just see a lot of baseless theorycrafting without actually having tried out the build.
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On May 24 2011 19:28 ChickenLips wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote:relying on your opponent not massing speedlings early game. who even does that? The last time I saw that was dimaga vs whitera in some match months ago and dimaga lost hilariously to just a standard zealot sentry defense. That's just a stupid cheese, sacrificing A METRIC FUCKTON of economy on the offchance that the Protoss is stupid enough to let the lings do damage. Zerg doesn't work like "i'm gonna pressure a little bit off 18 drones and then drone-whore", at that drone count you either commit to an attack and win or you lose. Spamming speedlings without scouting what the P does might be a soft counter to this strategy but it's so bad, rarely done and dies to so many other strategies (namely all the other standard ones) that you can safely ignore it contemplating this build. Show nested quote +On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote: You are also completely screwed against any kind of expo-cancel, 1 base all-in without the 3rd gate. Just cancel the Nexus, I'm sorry to say but I just see a lot of baseless theorycrafting without actually having tried out the build.
Lol at random guy flaming blue post even though he is wrong ^^ Mass speedling all-in is one of the most important constraint when designing a PvZ build. Ever wondered why the standard 3 gate sentry expand needed 4-5 sentries before expanding ? Just use the search function and type "speedling" if you don't believe me. The time between when your scouting probe dies and the time you get an hallucination or observer in his base is enough for zergs to mass speedlings off 2 base (low econ) and destroy your expansion. Also, "just cancelling" your expo isn't always possible (if the push comes after it is finished) and even if you do cancel it, you are still 1 base vs 2 base (even with low drone count) and need to make something happen fast before getting outmacroed.
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I'd like to repeat, until your expo completes the only way to get even one more sentry than my build provides is to skip/greatly delay hallucinate. And that can only get you a maximum of one extra sentry, which btw you can get with 2 gates by using one chrono on a gateway.
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ChickenLips, your logic is ridiculous. If you seriously think it's a good idea to ignore possibilities like that when making a build, go ahead and 16 nexus every game because "lol 6 pool is a stupid cheese let's just ignore it exists because the last time I saw it Slush got owned by Naniwa!"
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On May 24 2011 19:58 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2011 19:28 ChickenLips wrote:On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote:relying on your opponent not massing speedlings early game. who even does that? The last time I saw that was dimaga vs whitera in some match months ago and dimaga lost hilariously to just a standard zealot sentry defense. That's just a stupid cheese, sacrificing A METRIC FUCKTON of economy on the offchance that the Protoss is stupid enough to let the lings do damage. Zerg doesn't work like "i'm gonna pressure a little bit off 18 drones and then drone-whore", at that drone count you either commit to an attack and win or you lose. Spamming speedlings without scouting what the P does might be a soft counter to this strategy but it's so bad, rarely done and dies to so many other strategies (namely all the other standard ones) that you can safely ignore it contemplating this build. On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote: You are also completely screwed against any kind of expo-cancel, 1 base all-in without the 3rd gate. Just cancel the Nexus, I'm sorry to say but I just see a lot of baseless theorycrafting without actually having tried out the build. Mass speedling all-in is one of the most important constraint when designing a PvZ build.
wow just wow
Noone, absolutely noone does a speedling all-in at a high level to attack a sentry expand. I don't even know where you come up with something this blatantly wrong.
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On May 24 2011 20:42 iamke55 wrote: ChickenLips, your logic is ridiculous. If you seriously think it's a good idea to ignore possibilities like that when making a build, go ahead and 16 nexus every game because "lol 6 pool is a stupid cheese let's just ignore it exists because the last time I saw it Slush got owned by Naniwa!"
Because that's exactly what I said.... My logic is: Noone attacks a sentry expand with mass speedling. That's such a stupid and bad build. You see 2 gas and you mass speedlings? If it's DTs, you're dead, if it's Stargate units, you're dead, if it's 3gate expand, you're dead, if it's blink stalkers, you're dead, MAYBE!!!! it's a 2gate sentry expand (which almost noone does atm) and MAYBE you can delay his expansion for a huge economic hit, which probably isn't even true because:
On May 24 2011 20:22 Keilah wrote: I'd like to repeat, until your expo completes the only way to get even one more sentry than my build provides is to skip/greatly delay hallucinate. And that can only get you a maximum of one extra sentry, which btw you can get with 2 gates by using one chrono on a gateway.
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On May 24 2011 20:56 ChickenLips wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2011 20:42 iamke55 wrote: ChickenLips, your logic is ridiculous. If you seriously think it's a good idea to ignore possibilities like that when making a build, go ahead and 16 nexus every game because "lol 6 pool is a stupid cheese let's just ignore it exists because the last time I saw it Slush got owned by Naniwa!" Because that's exactly what I said.... My logic is: Noone attacks a sentry expand with mass speedling. That's such a stupid and bad build. You see 2 gas and you mass speedlings? If it's DTs, you're dead, if it's Stargate units, you're dead, if it's 3gate expand, you're dead, if it's blink stalkers, you're dead, MAYBE!!!! it's a 2gate sentry expand (which almost noone does atm) and MAYBE you can delay his expansion for a huge economic hit, which probably isn't even true because: Show nested quote +On May 24 2011 20:22 Keilah wrote: I'd like to repeat, until your expo completes the only way to get even one more sentry than my build provides is to skip/greatly delay hallucinate. And that can only get you a maximum of one extra sentry, which btw you can get with 2 gates by using one chrono on a gateway.
People get greedy, expand with fewer sentries than they should etc... All-in builds like this (2 base speedlings) is what keep people honest and therefor, it is definitely relevant when discussing a PvZ sentry expand build. This build is what jusitfies the need for 4-5 sentries in the first place.
Instead of discarding the possibility of speedling all-in , I'd just like to know if this build can deal with it. Your statement saying "Lol noone does this anwmore" is irrelevant. A safe PvZ opener should be able to deal with everything Z can throw at it.
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I'd be happy to test it in about 16 hours. PM me if interested.
I have said a few times in the thread that 'if that one extra sentry is absolutely crucial' then my build is fail. I really doubt it though, i mean... 1 sentry :|
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On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote: With only 2 gates, your opponent can deny your expo for a very long time with just speedlings and drone behind his pressure. You are also completely screwed against any kind of expo-cancel, 1 base all-in without the 3rd gate. Even if your build might have better odds against the roach/speedling attack recently popularized by losira, you're just playing the metagame and relying on your opponent not massing speedlings early game.
This is pretty much nonsense. You have the exact same amount of units as you are actually not capped by gateway production but by gas income in a 2 or 3 gate expand. The reason 3 gate expand is so popular imo is because it is more hidden. It throws down the 2nd and 3rd gate later making it harder to scout. Besides that it can also be more aggresive then a 2 gate by doing stuff like adding a 4th gate and going nexus cancel ala MC.
If you dismiss the fact you can scare them into booming less hard, something that only really works at the highest levels anyway where signals are really important, then a 2 gate is simply more efficient then a 3 gate.
At the pro level it is much more important for a build to be hidden or hard to scout then it is at the level 99% of the forum visitors plays at. In that way I think 2 gate expand is the most solid way to expand.
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Nice write up.
I've been doing this build for the past week now, just to note the differences in this and a 3 gate expand.(Masters Protoss) I don't think you actually need the second cannon. One cannon will suffice to defend the roach ling when you have a nice wall. You just need to bait the roaches to come forward and FF them off, and pick them off as you add more cannons.
Anyways, I add 2 more gateway to protect my cannon, whilst getting hallucination and getting another gas at my natural.
As my 2 extra gates pop up, I hallucinate some phoenix's, add a robo and begin "Shark mode".
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I came up with nearly exactly the same build inspired by the discuccion in that other thread
I just use 2 chronos on the hallucination and dont start the canons before I confirm that he is attacking, so I dont have to cancel them. Used already a few times against roach/ling and it went well. better then 3 gate expand!
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EDIT: quoted wrong post
On May 24 2011 13:31 iamke55 wrote: With only 2 gates, your opponent can deny your expo for a very long time with just speedlings and drone behind his pressure. You are also completely screwed against any kind of expo-cancel, 1 base all-in without the 3rd gate. Even if your build might have better odds against the roach/speedling attack recently popularized by losira, you're just playing the metagame and relying on your opponent not massing speedlings early game.
this is not true. you will have less units, but that doesnt mean, you cant defend ling pressure.
the point is, that you will have your wall-off WAY quicker than with 3 gate expand. I think it's a lot easier to defend lings if they only can get around on one side of the nexus and can't backstab you with hidden lings.
on maps with tighter naturals you are probably still good with 3 gate expand, but on xel naga and shattered temple etc. I now prefer the 2 gate with forge and 3rd gate in the wall-off
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On May 24 2011 23:42 WrathOfAiur wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2011 20:42 iamke55 wrote: ChickenLips, your logic is ridiculous. If you seriously think it's a good idea to ignore possibilities like that when making a build, go ahead and 16 nexus every game because "lol 6 pool is a stupid cheese let's just ignore it exists because the last time I saw it Slush got owned by Naniwa!" this is not true. you will have less units, but that doesnt mean, you cant defend ling pressure. the point is, that you will have your wall-off WAY quicker than with 3 gate expand. I think it's a lot easier to defend lings if the only can get around on one side of the nexus and can't backstab you with hidden lings. on maps with tighter naturals you are probably still good with 3 gate expand, but on xel naga and shattered temple etc. I now prefer the 2 gate with forge and 3rd gate in the wall-off
I don't see how "this is not true" and your explanation is in any way related to what you quoted.
This build might be safe vs speedling all-in, but that doesn't mean it was stupid to ask the question in the first place. Now we need the OP or someone else to do the actual testing. If anyone wants to test this with me I'll be connected this evening (europe time) [EU] geiko.813
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sorry, I accidentally quoted his other post. of course this was meant to address the speedling issues. I edited it.
If you have a solid wall and lings can only get around on one side it almost doenst matter how many lings the zerg has. that's why nobody does speedling all-ins but instead roach/ling.
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So I just tried this build out, it feels pretty good to play with I must say. It can definitely hold a 2 base speedling all-in push.
My execution of it isn't perfect, but I hit the timings I think.
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nothing more satisfied than a convinced doubter
Would like to point out that absolutely nothing stops you from cancelling a nexus, the forge, and/or hallucinate and adding 2 more gates if you want to do like the MC nexus cancel.
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On May 25 2011 03:36 Keilah wrote:nothing more satisfied than a convinced doubter Would like to point out that absolutely nothing stops you from cancelling a nexus, the forge, and/or hallucinate and adding 2 more gates if you want to do like the MC nexus cancel.
Never said I was convinced ^^ I just said the build looks good and can hold ling all in. I'll do more testing and let you know how I feel about it
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On May 23 2011 09:53 setmeal wrote: How about this one? GreatFields by Minigun
Minigun ForceFields Against Roach/Linghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAEYzFxvAV0
Why didn't the zerg player just attack from the back side and kill probes/ the nexus instead attacking straight into the strongest part of Minigun's defense? Am I missing something?
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well he could have definitely killed some probes but no way he's getting the nexus, it has a million HP
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HongUnPrime.WE just used 2 gate expand and a quick wall with 3rd gate and forge against Moon In the GSL Super Tournament. He didn't get hallucination afterwards but followed it with a twilight council and blink +3 more gates. So this is not exactly the same, but the expansion + wall looked just the same.
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This sounds like a good build and seems to make more sense than 3gate sentry expands.
Question about this build: 1) why do you take 2nd gas on 18 instead of 21supply?? I know this is probably quite picky, but does it mean your zealot comes out a bit later and risks zerglings running in? also, do you need that much gas early on? I tried doing this build and found that just as i am expanding i find it hard to spend my gas. 2) Not sure if you have seen Grubby vs Darkforce do this but he also does a 2 gate expand, but instead takes gas on 23 and gate on 24, and throws down the nexus around 5:30(sorry cant remember that part!). How does your build compare to this one? Does yours focus more on sentries and getting out halluncinate quicker?
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if you take the second gas before zealot, your zealot will still be in time for a standard speedling build (14 gas, 13 pool) even on close spawns on shattered temple and meta. because you need the additional gas for hallucination you should take it before your zealot.
if you dont want to go for hallucination, you can of course get the gas later and in exchange get your nexus and buildings on the low ground faster.
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We also have to keep in mind that there are several different 2 base roach/ling timing pushes...such as the 25 drone cut, 33 drone cut, etc. Each different one really does need to be responded to differently, because the timing and selection of our gateway units are pretty strained.
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