A Korean Protoss pro MilkyWay has just released a method to completely stop apylon/bunker wall in at the opponent's ramp between the base and the natural.
I personally believe that artificial controls over game plays must be minimized, so I'm creating a new thread to inform this tip, encouraging foreign tourneys that use neutral supply depot to prevent wall in rush to remove those depots from the map, since the particular play can be overcome with the tip Milkyway provided.
The tip is very simple. When your ramp is blocked by your opponent, you first gather your workers near by the ramp. Then you should click on a close mineral patch in your natural. The workers will stack right in front of the wall. You should A-click the wall, which will instantly cause your slack to go loose. You should quickly re-click the mineral patch, and keep doing this until the wall is broken.
According to Milkyway, this method will deal a damage of 50~60(depending on your neat execution and worker counts) per attack and you will most likely break through the wall when the first cannon is about 50% done. You should force cancel the cannon/ other bunkers under construction using your workers.
Milkyway added in comments that Protoss will virtually have 0% winrate if their cannon rush fails this way, since Zerg would suffer almost 0 damage(little mining time), while Protoss would lose 3 pylons and a few cannons. He even recommends Zerg players to induce Protoss to do cannon rush if the zerg player is confident with his execution of this Wall Breaker method. He asserts that this will 100% prevent/stop cannon and bunker walling in rush, if executed properly by the defender. He also said that Zergs should always take expansions first to maximize the advantage.
I never liked foreign tourneys preventing wall in type rushes by artificial means because you actually can prevent it with pure micro skills such as by putting your worker on patrol and using your workers to repel your opponent's probes/scvs/marines. It just required some attention and fair micro.
Anyways, since the hard counter has been released, I hope we do not see neutral supply depots to prevent wall ins on foreign tourney maps anymore.
This is my first thread, so I hope I didn't mess up anything big. Rejoice, Zerg players.
Milkyway's original post was blinded because angry Protoss mobs thumbed down this tip(it was more like prank thumb downs because Protoss is doing so poorly in Korea. With today's result, Protoss's winrate in current GSL dropped to 31%. I'm mentioning this to explain why Milkyway's great thread was blinded, so please stay refrained from off topic balance posts.)
So this is obviously going to mean that Zerg has a viable defense for a cannon wall-in and should have some lighter, but still effective implications for bunker wall-ins.
Here's a video posted by Nemesys showing the drill in action:
I think this small technique, refined of course, will work wonders for early game base defense for Zerg and am opening a mirror thread here to discuss the utility of the tactic rather than removing the depot from maps.
it does look like a great strategy and the fact that you only lose well a bit of mining time, but for the protoss he spends a lot of minerals 100 for each pylon and 150 for each cannon. Definitely something that should be refined and used.
Man, I'm going to test this out, As zerg the only thing i fear is cannon rushes since I hatch first like 90% of my games against protoss, but would this work on Taldarim?
That is 15 drones working to take down a pylon? And then thereafter have to take down 1 or 2 cannons. How is that not alot of mining time? The Math is 3xpylon + 2 cancelled cannons = 362 minerals vs 15/all mining workers for 1 ingame minute.
I do not not the exact numbers, but is it certain that Zerg will be economically ahead after this?
I suppose this is only as easy to pull off if you can actually click on minerals at the natural while without moving camera you can also attack the pylon with your drones, are there any maps where this isn't possible?
Also, what is the problem with the current supply depot placing? It seems to me there's no real issue with it, since in my mind the only thing it does is allow zergs to play without knowing this "trick", and there are no actual downsides to the supply depot being there?
I suppose this is only as easy to pull off if you can actually click on minerals at the natural while without moving camera you can also attack the pylon with your drones, are there any maps where this isn't possible?
Also, what is the problem with the current supply depot placing? It seems to me there's no real issue with it, since in my mind the only thing it does is allow zergs to play without knowing this "trick", and there are no actual downsides to the supply depot being there?
all in all great find though, props to milkyway
The supply depot hinders Terran and Toss defensive openers, and just look plain silly
On September 01 2011 01:08 Swien wrote: I suppose this is only as easy to pull off if you can actually click on minerals at the natural while without moving camera you can also attack the pylon with your drones, are there any maps where this isn't possible?
Also, what is the problem with the current supply depot placing? It seems to me there's no real issue with it, since in my mind the only thing it does is allow zergs to play without knowing this "trick", and there are no actual downsides to the supply depot being there?
all in all great find though, props to milkyway
Sometimes it gets in the way for P or T when we try to FE.
On September 01 2011 01:07 Goolpsy wrote: That is 15 drones working to take down a pylon? And then thereafter have to take down 1 or 2 cannons. How is that not alot of mining time? The Math is 3xpylon + 2 cancelled cannons = 362 minerals vs 15/all mining workers for 1 ingame minute.
I do not not the exact numbers, but is it certain that Zerg will be economically ahead after this?
I believe 3 pylons + 2 cancelled cannons should be 375 minerals: a cannon costs 150 minerals and you get 75% of the cost back when you cancel a building so you should lose 37.5 minerals per cancelled cannon for a total of 75.
Intuitively to me zerg should be ahead after using this trick but the more I do the math the more it seems like zerg might be behind in terms of minerals spent by toss vs minerals lost by zerg. Perhaps the optimal solution is to bring just enough drones to break down the wall in time to kill the cannons? This definitely depends on how much people can refine this trick / how fast they can get it.
I love this trick! Very exciting to see a broodwar-esque trick like this discovered. It also seems like this should be a big help to zergs dealing with stupid pylon walloffs.
excellent find, though it might be nice to have a first person video bevause im still hsving a little trouble figuring out the clicks.
removing the depots is definitely a good idea, because it limits strategies. before it was neccessary cuz it was too hard to deal with, but now it should be an option.
Very interesting... Definitely worthwhile vs the cannon wall-in.
As for ZvT, for offensive attacking, say, a terran's supply depot wall-in in this manner, it seems it can work for getting in, but the number of drones should be outnumbered by scvs once inside, though perhaps a drone +some lings all-in can overwhelm the terran's scv count, and possibly 1-2 rines, though as the game progresses, and the rine/maurader count behind the depots increases, the drones are going to have a harder time getting in...
I wonder what an optimal "drone-bust cheese" build order would be, if such a thing could be effective? (and obviously, this is map dependent, making the micro harder/impossible if the minerals are farther away)
My problem is never with the three pylon wall off, but rather cannon rushes in the mineral line followed up by chronoboosted zealots. Nevertheless, I found this to be very effective vs Terran bunker rushes.
On September 01 2011 01:24 EtherealDeath wrote: Psst this has already been posted in Custom Maps ><. Should consolidate discussion there, as that thread is longer and earlier.
It was requested in the Custom Map forum to make another thread so that the two aspects can be discussed independently.
Nice find, but as a Protoss player i'm sad that hatch first builds from Zerg will go unpunished as Protoss has enough trouble to keep the Zerg honest without going completely allin.
On September 01 2011 01:54 ApocAlypsE007 wrote: Nice find, but as a Protoss player i'm sad that hatch first builds from Zerg will go unpunished as Protoss has enough trouble to keep the Zerg honest without going completely allin.
Don't forget you can still place pylons and cannons inbetween the minerals and geysers which is one way to still punish hatch first.
On September 01 2011 01:53 Antisocialmunky wrote: What happens if the Protoss just cancels everything? Then, you're down quite a few minerals.
I think you're supposed to wait for the pylons to finish so they can't cancel, the cannon won't have enough time to be made when you start attacking the pylon
Just tested it, and if you have about 15 drones right next to pylon, and you start mineral drilling, it takes about 15 ingame seconds to take down a pylon. A cannon takes about 40 seconds to build, so like the op said, you should be able to take down the wall when the cannon's halfway finished.
On September 01 2011 01:28 HenryZ wrote: Might start doing 15h in zvp again, though I am still a bit worried about the pylon behind your mineral line -> cannons
On September 01 2011 02:10 Resistentialism wrote: ^^ No attack lag on a stationary target, though
The target is stationary, but the drones are not. You can see in the video that sometimes the drones dont cause any damage. That might be because after clicking on the minerals (stacking the drones against the pylon), by the time he clicked attack on the pylon the drones were already too far away from the pylon.
Just a guess though. We should compare this trick with the PTR drones
Well I guess I'll feel safe going hatch first in ZvP again, thanks for this, was feeling stressed out about playing Zerg lately, but this should help ^_^ , Wheres the video of drone drilling a bunker? Seems like it would be less effective vs marines X_X
This blew my mind right out of my skull, a very clever trick that will certainly augment my play. I mean, Wall off + cannon is no longer an auto-lose which is always a good thing. I still think it won't be as great against bunkers because they come later and will most likely already be accompanied with marines. Nevertheless, it's a good trick to execute in a desperate wall off situation. :D
I posted this in the other thread but I'm guessing this thread will get more attention because of the forum it's in.
I'm at work so I can't test. Would it be possible to have a few drones left to attack regularly so you get some sustained damage and at the same time use the trick with the rest of the drones? Not sure if it would be worth it even if it did work but something to try.
I'd love to see this in action, because when i try it with my friend (15 hatch/15 pool) the drones never seem to break through in time before the first cannon warps in. And if it warps in, game over.
To be honest if you manage to keep your fast expansion and all your drones, you are in a quite good position, because protoss wont be able to have his nexus as fast as your hatchery. I'd be willing to be some minerals down my opponent just not to be contained. That said, i still think a quick pool into hatchery is better (safer) since your protoss opponent cannot build cannons in the back of your natural where the drone drill wont be effective, like Dimaga said.
You don't need to pull all your drones. Max drones that can hit it is about 6-8 at a time. It was a bug in starcraft 1 where you could 1shot stuff if you stacked drones. Nowadays you can deal as much dmg as you would do in a Worker vs Ling fight. I've known this for ages and used it offensively too in a cheese rush.
Actually, wall off's still viable since you just build the next pylon on top of the dying one, one hex back...but this should make things a bit tougher for my current PvZ build....T_T
This is great, but if they put another pylon and cannon behind your mineral line you lose your hatch anyway. Couple that with the mining time lost... idk.
On September 01 2011 03:48 Flonomenalz wrote: This is great, but if they put another pylon and cannon behind your mineral line you lose your hatch anyway. Couple that with the mining time lost... idk.
Theres always a risk with going hatch first, it just makes it slightly more viable. This is not the "solve-all solution" to ZvP, it is just another great trick to know in the future.
Anyway, great post, certainly will try hatch first in map that has alot of space at the back of the minerals!
Amazing find MilkyWay, Its a pain to do but its not as big of a pain as being walled in ;_;. I 14/14 vs Toss anyways but I may do some 15 Hatch to try this in ladder game. Thanks for the find! and thanks to the guy who posted it here so I could see it^^.
It took about a minute from when you pulled the probes, to killing the pylon and getting to the cannons. Could trim off some extra seconds by executing it better. I'd like to know what is worth more.. 1 minute mining or stopping the cheese. Also, it seems like 1/4 of the drones weren't attacking.. I think it would be beneficial to leave that fourth mining minerals while taking down the cannon. Now, beyond the math, and applied to actual game settings, I think the Z would come out ahead just from toss having to cut so much stuff to cannon, then cancel. You have to also be wary that some tosses can be sneaky - throw up a gateway, or pylon to block off the pylon that is about to fall. This could put you realllly behind if you commited 10~ drones and didn't have some kind of Plan B tech or fall-back.
I'm not sure if all that lost mining time would be worth it rather than just teching to spines and have them poke your way out while getting a fast lair or something. As you may shut down his cannon rush but he will still early expo, i would like to see a full game of this too see how it plays out
On September 01 2011 04:55 TzTz wrote: Nice find, 15 Workers off the line while the protoss is mining at full capacity seems like easy loss for the zerg though
1st - Anything that saves your hatchery and simultaneously leaves Protoss with no way to apply early pressure is going to put Zerg in an advantageous position.
2nd - its been mentioned by some posters in this thread that it might not be worth bringing more than 8-10 drones to do the drill (I guess there's a cap on how many drones can attack simultaneously).
I know I will be playing with this when I get home tonight looking for more concrete answers to these questions, but this little tactic is a giant boon to early game cheese defense in general, no question there.
I want to see this executed against a protoss who adds a second wall of pylons behind the first (and in front of the cannons) when drones begin attacking.
I really hope this is here to stay. It would be ridiculous if Blizzard but this under the category of a bug that needs fixing when clearly it was the super easy low ground walls in your opponent's base that needs fixing. GG well played.
On September 01 2011 05:24 BronzeKnee wrote: I would be surprised if Blizzard patched this out of the game, given that they should have patched the ramp block offs from the start, but never did.
Nice find.
they did patch the ramp block offs... remember when it only took 2 pylons and there were no neutral supply depots? I don't think blizzard is going to patch stacking workers. Yes this works defending against lings in your mineral line.
A lot of the videos here arent showing how to do it quite right. when I was able to do it properly with probes I was amazed at how fast the health really dropped on the pylons I placed earlier. I will record a video and post it here.
Nice tutorial! I can be done even faster though, but you need to have good mouse control. The trick is to shift click a mineral patch a few times until all drones are stacked and than quickly click the pylon. In that way all drones will attack the pylon instead of only half the workers. If you have vision of the mineral patches in your natural (which you should usually have with Zerg as your overlord should be there) it's a lot easier, as you don't even have to shift click the mineral patch. In that case clicking it once is enough to stack all drones.
On September 01 2011 01:39 DuncanIdaho wrote: Very interesting... Definitely worthwhile vs the cannon wall-in.
As for ZvT, for offensive attacking, say, a terran's supply depot wall-in in this manner, it seems it can work for getting in, but the number of drones should be outnumbered by scvs once inside, though perhaps a drone +some lings all-in can overwhelm the terran's scv count, and possibly 1-2 rines, though as the game progresses, and the rine/maurader count behind the depots increases, the drones are going to have a harder time getting in...
I wonder what an optimal "drone-bust cheese" build order would be, if such a thing could be effective? (and obviously, this is map dependent, making the micro harder/impossible if the minerals are farther away)
In any case, awesome find, thanks for sharing!
2-3 scvs repair at the same rate that the drones do damage (on a bunker at least, didn't test depot)
Incredible find. It won me a game today. Toss called my race op and it's bs that I could break thru.lol. We need to keep this thread alive and tell all ur friends abt it since its such a revolution. All the top tier Zergs will love it when they find out abt it. And the ladder will be more fair. Make this thread sweep the world. Do u agree guys?
I was going to upload a video but it takes 2.5 hours for a 30 second clip with my internet connection >.<
Basically I have discovered something.
The easiest way to do it is to take 15 workers and just Shift queue a move to mineral patch closest to you then attack the pylon yourself but do not Queue the attack.
Before you requeue the move to mineral patch command, wait until you hear all the workers attack. The usual zap, or drill or bite sound effect will play but there will be 2 of them one played over another. Wait until you hear the second attack sound complete because after that sound effect the next attack will be from less workers since they are unstacked.
Something else I learned about the number of workers which actually have their attack connect.
No Matter how many workers you have not all of them will actually get an attack in. This is key to remember. If you take 8 workers not all 8 will attack the pylon and if you take 15 workers not all 15 workers will attack the pylon. The reason for this being that once you issue an attack command the workers will try to spread out and unstack.
This image shows I somehow manage to get 14 of the probes to attack doing a total of 70!! Damage to the shields of the pylon.
This next one shows that for some reason the 7 probes I highlighted with my mouse cursor spread away from the pylon and did not attack (last time only one did not attack last time).
This following image is of only 8 workers. The entire time I tried to use only 8 I could not get them to do a full 40 damage (each hitting).
Only 2 units on this first attack did damage. In fact fewer probes of the total 8 did damage whereas a little over half always did damage when I used 15 probes. I believe this is a result of the way the probes try to automatically split away from eachother and unstack when the mineral move command stops being given and an attack command is issued. They want to attack but the game itself forces them to unstack to a certain extent creating a variability in the total damage done. Having more workers will mean more workers remain stacked when they follow through on the attack command thereby causing more damage.
TL;DR Taking 15 workers makes them do more damage and if you get lucky the max output is 75 !! instead of 40-50. Taking 8 workers the maximum damage is 40 but it rarely happens and instead you do 20-25 damage more than doubling the time it takes to kill the blocking pylon.
It's not viable. Any good toss will scout you before you lay down a 15 hatch and deny it for quite awhile in which case your minerals keep going up. So you end up putting down a pool before hatch anyhow.
Even if you get a 15 hatch down, they can always cannon you behind your natural mineral line.
Also, since you will be only attacking 1 pylon, they can cut probes and block that pylon with another pylon and cannon and cannon #1 will already be up. So, you just pulled like 10 drones for nothing for a long time.
The video seems flawed. Would it not be better to stack workers by clicking a mineral patch and using them to do immediate burst damage at the pylon/bunker? Then repeat the process. Instead in the video the workers did that for the first attack but the operator started doing this shift queing business. I personally think restacking the workers again would be much faster and more potent.
hahahaha cant wait for combatex to fall from GrandMaster because of this. Glorious day indeed and shows all the neat tricks that has yet to be discovered! Bringing back the glory day of the discovery of the magic box! :D
Also like some people pointed out, without mineral patch to click on it wont work. An example would be the tripple bunker on the wide ramp on the natural of Shakuras.
On September 01 2011 01:07 Goolpsy wrote: That is 15 drones working to take down a pylon? And then thereafter have to take down 1 or 2 cannons. How is that not alot of mining time? The Math is 3xpylon + 2 cancelled cannons = 362 minerals vs 15/all mining workers for 1 ingame minute.
I do not not the exact numbers, but is it certain that Zerg will be economically ahead after this?
I believe 3 pylons + 2 cancelled cannons should be 375 minerals: a cannon costs 150 minerals and you get 75% of the cost back when you cancel a building so you should lose 37.5 minerals per cancelled cannon for a total of 75.
Intuitively to me zerg should be ahead after using this trick but the more I do the math the more it seems like zerg might be behind in terms of minerals spent by toss vs minerals lost by zerg. Perhaps the optimal solution is to bring just enough drones to break down the wall in time to kill the cannons? This definitely depends on how much people can refine this trick / how fast they can get it.
I love this trick! Very exciting to see a broodwar-esque trick like this discovered. It also seems like this should be a big help to zergs dealing with stupid pylon walloffs.
once u have the first pylon down u only need to keep 4 drones killing the cannon, 1 to chase. 10 can go back almost asap. then just repeat the trick if he blocks you in again.
you never need to lay a pool if he continues to block you in as he cant be making units either, just drone behind it for as long as the cannons keep getting laid
I dont think this will be enough for them to remove the ugly neutral supply depot at the bottom ramps, because this method really only works against terran and not zerg.
I posted this in the other thread, but I thought I'd do so again here. This more clearly illustrates why the shift method can do more damage overall. Again, forgive my excitement; at the time just demonstrating for a couple clan/teammates in vent.
On September 01 2011 06:09 MegaDancer wrote: Incredible find. It won me a game today. Toss called my race op and it's bs that I could break thru.lol. We need to keep this thread alive and tell all ur friends abt it since its such a revolution. All the top tier Zergs will love it when they find out abt it. And the ladder will be more fair. Make this thread sweep the world. Do u agree guys?
Yes the ladder will be more fair. Another build protoss cannot use, that could be stopped by having 1 drone sit at the bottom of your ramp while the probe is by your base. Not saying Zerg is OP like your ladder buddy. But your concept of fairness is lost on me. How was it ever unfair to invest 150+100+100+100+150 (+ the additional cannons you would need past the first) to kill a building that costs 300. I hate to sound like a Beta Zerg but, Protoss is screwed.
This following image is of only 8 workers. The entire time I tried to use only 8 I could not get them to do a full 40 damage (each hitting).
I could get 38 out of 40 probes to hit a pylon at same time on shakuras. Maybe it's just xel'naga.
It might get better the more probes you have. It was easier to do more damage with more probes than it was to do it with fewer probes.
On September 01 2011 10:12 Pwnographics wrote: Does this make SCV marine all ins that much stronger?
Not unless there are only scvs left and there are zerglings attacking them as they stack on the mineral lines and the guy can click really really accurately and fast. If the units move at all they decide to spread out. The unit they decide to attack would need to be in melee range.
I tried doing this on shattered temple and had an interesting result
It wasn't until I clicked them on the gold mineral patches that they started to stack at the bottom of the ramp. Clicking the natural mineral patches didn't work.
On September 01 2011 01:07 Goolpsy wrote: That is 15 drones working to take down a pylon? And then thereafter have to take down 1 or 2 cannons. How is that not alot of mining time? The Math is 3xpylon + 2 cancelled cannons = 362 minerals vs 15/all mining workers for 1 ingame minute.
I do not not the exact numbers, but is it certain that Zerg will be economically ahead after this?
I think that it is roughly 50 minerals as an average per worker but i dont know how saturation would effect this as there is a bigger income difference from 0 to 8 workers compared to 8 - 16 and even less in comparison to 16 - 24. So my maths works out that you would be way behind.
Considering you can really build a hatch somewhere else or just go one base and build 1 spine crawler to take down everything, i don't think that this is a huge problem considering you can also prevent this with one patrolling worker ?
On September 01 2011 06:09 MegaDancer wrote: Incredible find. It won me a game today. Toss called my race op and it's bs that I could break thru.lol. We need to keep this thread alive and tell all ur friends abt it since its such a revolution. All the top tier Zergs will love it when they find out abt it. And the ladder will be more fair. Make this thread sweep the world. Do u agree guys?
Yes the ladder will be more fair. Another build protoss cannot use, that could be stopped by having 1 drone sit at the bottom of your ramp while the probe is by your base. Not saying Zerg is OP like your ladder buddy. But your concept of fairness is lost on me. How was it ever unfair to invest 150+100+100+100+150 (+ the additional cannons you would need past the first) to kill a building that costs 300. I hate to sound like a Beta Zerg but, Protoss is screwed.
No. Protoss is not screwed. Having to open up pool first and automatically be behind because of the fear of cannon rushing was/is retarded. Not only that but you lose the hatch, have to rebuild another one, lose mining time, and then eventually lose units/mining time while breaking out.
On September 01 2011 10:07 Wrongspeedy wrote:Yes the ladder will be more fair. Another build protoss cannot use, that could be stopped by having 1 drone sit at the bottom of your ramp while the probe is by your base. Not saying Zerg is OP like your ladder buddy. But your concept of fairness is lost on me. How was it ever unfair to invest 150+100+100+100+150 (+ the additional cannons you would need past the first) to kill a building that costs 300. I hate to sound like a Beta Zerg but, Protoss is screwed.
If you think your race seriously had to rely entirely on stuff like this to win in the first place then you've got more serious problems.
Also, your reckoning of the relative costs is inaccurate. You do far more than just "kill" a 300 mineral building. A successful Pylon + Cannon block at the ramp completely screws over the Zerg, and he can't win unless he pulls some stroke of genius, gets lucky, or the Protoss messes up big time.
yeah i hope they remove the lower supply depot as well, so i can wall in below the ramp again and deny worker scouting on 4 player maps by a really high chance. Oops shouldn't have revealed the true reason for the supply depot now.
I wonder though if we will ever see this in a cheese game where they take their workers with them to kill the wallin
IMO the 3 pylon or 2 bunker walls have never been the biggest of issues. Maps which allow the construction of canons behind the minerals with pylons blocking are the most annoying. Aside from that, pylon/ebay/depot blocking the expansion is also a pretty huge issue.
Those reasons are some of the reasons why I run an economically viable 11 overlord, 11 pool (11 overpool) build as standard, while sometimes varying to hatch first on the right maps.
As far as I know (maybe people have posted about this already) the biggest reason for the lowered depots is to prevent the cheap/abusive 1-depot 1-barracks wall-ins on the low ground. I don't consider those to be very fair.
On September 01 2011 11:26 Xapti wrote: IMO the 3 pylon or 2 bunker walls have never been the biggest of issues. Maps which allow the construction of canons behind the minerals with pylons blocking are the most annoying. Aside from that, pylon/ebay/depot blocking the expansion is also a pretty huge issue.
Those reasons are some of the reasons why I run an economically viable 11 overlord, 11 pool (11 overpool) build as standard, while sometimes varying to hatch first on the right maps.
As far as I know (maybe people have posted about this already) the biggest reason for the lowered depots is to prevent the cheap/abusive 1-depot 1-barracks wall-ins on the low ground. I don't consider those to be very fair.
Behind mineral line cannon rushes can be beaten in a similar way if you bunch up on the mineral patch next to the single pylon
On September 01 2011 10:07 Wrongspeedy wrote:Yes the ladder will be more fair. Another build protoss cannot use, that could be stopped by having 1 drone sit at the bottom of your ramp while the probe is by your base. Not saying Zerg is OP like your ladder buddy. But your concept of fairness is lost on me. How was it ever unfair to invest 150+100+100+100+150 (+ the additional cannons you would need past the first) to kill a building that costs 300. I hate to sound like a Beta Zerg but, Protoss is screwed.
If you think your race seriously had to rely entirely on stuff like this to win in the first place then you've got more serious problems.
Also, your reckoning of the relative costs is inaccurate. You do far more than just "kill" a 300 mineral building. A successful Pylon + Cannon block at the ramp completely screws over the Zerg, and he can't win unless he pulls some stroke of genius, gets lucky, or the Protoss messes up big time.
The Protoss cannot even expand safely after he does that block, your not as far behind as you think (your not even really behind). The Protoss invested twice as much, cut probes, and delayed his cybernetics. My point is that everytime this happens, thats one less option a Protoss has. If you 6 pool on Shakuras, you will kill a Forge FE every single time.
Are you the same Zerg players who think that you have to have more bases than the Protoss to win as well (If you believe that you really should take a long hard look at all your games)? Like I also said, this pylon block isn't even a good build to begin with because even before this, good players would scout with a drone and stop it. Everyday Protoss builds become less viable. Everything we do is deemed all in (because we are a race of gimmicks and tricks). Someone posted a thread today about Huk's PvT at Mlg, which was ridiculous because he was just doing the 3 gate sentry expand like in PvZ. Oh and I've lost plenty of games in a # of different ways after doing one of those pylon blocks. You have a lot more options than you give Zerg credit for (Protoss has more options than I give them credit).
1. Spines kill cannons 2. Roaches kill cannons 3. You have a drone outside the cannons and expand elsewhere 4. You have a drone outside the cannons and expand in the Protoss base 5. Nydus All-in
If I get those pylons and cannons down I'm getting a cybernetics and 3 gates ASAP. Or if I think Roaches are coming maybe 2 gates and a Stargate. Either way its 1 base to 1 base with an equal amount of workers at best for the Protoss. This frustration has nothing to do with Zerg. It has to do with the fact that PvZ used to be considered the easier MU for Protoss
Do you think PvT has gotten any easier lately? Its a sad day in Protoss ville when all you can look forward to is a PvP. End Rant.
On September 01 2011 10:07 Wrongspeedy wrote:Yes the ladder will be more fair. Another build protoss cannot use, that could be stopped by having 1 drone sit at the bottom of your ramp while the probe is by your base. Not saying Zerg is OP like your ladder buddy. But your concept of fairness is lost on me. How was it ever unfair to invest 150+100+100+100+150 (+ the additional cannons you would need past the first) to kill a building that costs 300. I hate to sound like a Beta Zerg but, Protoss is screwed.
If you think your race seriously had to rely entirely on stuff like this to win in the first place then you've got more serious problems.
Also, your reckoning of the relative costs is inaccurate. You do far more than just "kill" a 300 mineral building. A successful Pylon + Cannon block at the ramp completely screws over the Zerg, and he can't win unless he pulls some stroke of genius, gets lucky, or the Protoss messes up big time.
The Protoss cannot even expand safely after he does that block, your not as far behind as you think (your not even really behind). The Protoss invested twice as much, cut probes, and delayed his cybernetics. My point is that everytime this happens, thats one less option a Protoss has. If you 6 pool on Shakuras, you will kill a Forge FE every single time.
Are you the same Zerg players who think that you have to have more bases than the Protoss to win as well (If you believe that you really should take a long hard look at all your games)? Like I also said, this pylon block isn't even a good build to begin with because even before this, good players would scout with a drone and stop it. Everyday Protoss builds become less viable. Everything we do is deemed all in (because we are a race of gimmicks and tricks). Someone posted a thread today about Huk's PvT at Mlg, which was ridiculous because he was just doing the 3 gate sentry expand like in PvZ. Oh and I've lost plenty of games in a # of different ways after doing one of those pylon blocks. You have a lot more options than you give Zerg credit for (Protoss has more options than I give them credit).
1. Spines kill cannons 2. Roaches kill cannons 3. You have a drone outside the cannons and expand elsewhere 4. You have a drone outside the cannons and expand in the Protoss base 5. Nydus All-in
If I get those pylons and cannons down I'm getting a cybernetics and 3 gates ASAP. Or if I think Roaches are coming maybe 2 gates and a Stargate. Either way its 1 base to 1 base with an equal amount of workers at best for the Protoss. This frustration has nothing to do with Zerg. It has to do with the fact that PvZ used to be considered the easier MU for Protoss
Do you think PvT has gotten any easier lately? Its a sad day in Protoss ville when all you can look forward to is a PvP. End Rant.
All I hear is Toss QQ.
Zerg is definitely behind if his hatch first gets cannon rushed. That's an undeniable fact. We usually have to invest in spines or roaches to break the wall, which puts us further behind. Do you think Zerg being EVEN with Terran or Toss is ever a good thing, aside from the late game?
Zerg has to have more bases, or be significantly ahead (i.e. I just killed your whole army with few losses and we're both on 2 base) for equal bases to work. EVERY Zerg strategy evolves around getting that fast third while denying Toss and Terran their third. It's undeniable fact. The only 2 base strategies that work towards NOT getting a third right away are nydus strategies and rushing to infestors. Those builds are designed to punish greedy toss players, and only work in those situations.
Protoss builds are becoming less viable because Protoss aren't making new builds. I read a lot of new Terran builds, a few Zerg ones, and little to no Toss ones every week. FFE is not an auto loss to 6 pool. You should scout it, and put a cannon in your mineral line while letting your forge die, then hold off initial 6 lings with probe micro until cannon finishes, then throw down gateway/core and you're ahead. Granted, there are things like close positions that make certain builds an auto loss, but there's not much you can do about that regardless of race.
A lot of things you do is deemed all in because it IS all in. When Toss loses their entire army in a timing attack, unless they're on 3+ bases and have enough gateways, they lost. That's an all in attack, meaning you have nothing to fall back on. Not enough Toss players do smart aggression, meaning little pokes, splitting off little groups of stalkers to go kill expansions, warp prism drops, etc., then they complain that they can't attack without being all in? Toss players say Infestors are imba yet don't make HTs. I don't understand. 1 HT can take out 4 infestors. FOUR. Then they can morph into Archons. You don't hear me complaining.
Lastly, I don't know why you are complaining about PvT in this thread.
On September 01 2011 12:04 BroboCop wrote: i'm still nto convinced as i haven't tried it, however, in that video it took 36 seconds to break the pylon. a cannon builds in 40.
Yeah, but you should be at the ramp before the pylons finish and the cannon is started.
In my opinion, if I ever win after s three pylon block, it's because I went nydus/ roach off of one base against a protoss that FFE after the cannons. Which is really stupid now that I think about it, from th Protoss side. If you manage to contain a Zerg like this and force him to cut drones to tech and make units, expanding is the stupidest thing you could do. After a wall-in like this, the best response would probably be a 5gate or 3gate expand.
So many Protoss die after FORCING a Zerg to allin and make no units of their own.
On September 01 2011 05:07 See.Blue wrote: Can probes do this, say as a way to oneshot zerglings in your mineral line during a 6pool?
All workers
You are implying to stack them all then focus fire the closest zergling?
Yeah. That seems to be its biggest use to me as a toss player. Spam click on mineral patch, let lings surround ball of probes, then attack click a ling, oneshotting it, then rinse wash repeat.
On September 01 2011 12:36 Emporio wrote: In my opinion, if I ever win after s three pylon block, it's because I went nydus/ roach off of one base against a protoss that FFE after the cannons. Which is really stupid now that I think about it, from th Protoss side. If you manage to contain a Zerg like this and force him to cut drones to tech and make units, expanding is the stupidest thing you could do. After a wall-in like this, the best response would probably be a 5gate or 3gate expand.
So many Protoss die after FORCING a Zerg to allin and make no units of their own.
Amusing. I've seen the same from Zergs who steal my gas and then cuss me out for 4gating them. Guess it must be human nature.
On September 01 2011 05:07 See.Blue wrote: Can probes do this, say as a way to oneshot zerglings in your mineral line during a 6pool?
All workers
You are implying to stack them all then focus fire the closest zergling?
Yeah. That seems to be its biggest use to me as a toss player. Spam click on mineral patch, let lings surround ball of probes, then attack click a ling, oneshotting it, then rinse wash repeat.
This probably wouldn't be as effective as just amoving.
I can consistently kill a pylon in ~20 seconds with 15 drones.
All things considered, I think that is too long of a time to have all your workers off the mineral line and don't really like this trick all that much.
On September 01 2011 05:07 See.Blue wrote: Can probes do this, say as a way to oneshot zerglings in your mineral line during a 6pool?
All workers
You are implying to stack them all then focus fire the closest zergling?
Yeah. That seems to be its biggest use to me as a toss player. Spam click on mineral patch, let lings surround ball of probes, then attack click a ling, oneshotting it, then rinse wash repeat.
This probably wouldn't be as effective as just amoving.
Really? It could be done rapidly and that'd kill any lings that venture into your mineral line...
On September 01 2011 10:07 Wrongspeedy wrote:Yes the ladder will be more fair. Another build protoss cannot use, that could be stopped by having 1 drone sit at the bottom of your ramp while the probe is by your base. Not saying Zerg is OP like your ladder buddy. But your concept of fairness is lost on me. How was it ever unfair to invest 150+100+100+100+150 (+ the additional cannons you would need past the first) to kill a building that costs 300. I hate to sound like a Beta Zerg but, Protoss is screwed.
If you think your race seriously had to rely entirely on stuff like this to win in the first place then you've got more serious problems.
Also, your reckoning of the relative costs is inaccurate. You do far more than just "kill" a 300 mineral building. A successful Pylon + Cannon block at the ramp completely screws over the Zerg, and he can't win unless he pulls some stroke of genius, gets lucky, or the Protoss messes up big time.
The Protoss cannot even expand safely after he does that block, your not as far behind as you think (your not even really behind). The Protoss invested twice as much, cut probes, and delayed his cybernetics. My point is that everytime this happens, thats one less option a Protoss has. If you 6 pool on Shakuras, you will kill a Forge FE every single time.
Are you the same Zerg players who think that you have to have more bases than the Protoss to win as well (If you believe that you really should take a long hard look at all your games)? Like I also said, this pylon block isn't even a good build to begin with because even before this, good players would scout with a drone and stop it. Everyday Protoss builds become less viable. Everything we do is deemed all in (because we are a race of gimmicks and tricks). Someone posted a thread today about Huk's PvT at Mlg, which was ridiculous because he was just doing the 3 gate sentry expand like in PvZ. Oh and I've lost plenty of games in a # of different ways after doing one of those pylon blocks. You have a lot more options than you give Zerg credit for (Protoss has more options than I give them credit).
1. Spines kill cannons 2. Roaches kill cannons 3. You have a drone outside the cannons and expand elsewhere 4. You have a drone outside the cannons and expand in the Protoss base 5. Nydus All-in
If I get those pylons and cannons down I'm getting a cybernetics and 3 gates ASAP. Or if I think Roaches are coming maybe 2 gates and a Stargate. Either way its 1 base to 1 base with an equal amount of workers at best for the Protoss. This frustration has nothing to do with Zerg. It has to do with the fact that PvZ used to be considered the easier MU for Protoss
Do you think PvT has gotten any easier lately? Its a sad day in Protoss ville when all you can look forward to is a PvP. End Rant.
That is why this is all in your not suppose to be able to expand when doing htis....and yes if you pull it off you are actually ahead.
1. If you trying to break it with spine crawlers then it going to take a while to spread the creep and this basically give you a decent time to expo. 2. Decent choice but forces the zerg to go all-in and hope it break. It also depend on map too because if the rush distance is far, the roaches might not make it to the toss base in time before he get cannons up to defend. 3. Your hoping he doesnt spot it cause if he does, he cannon it and your screwed. Pretty bad decision and gimicky. 4. Gimicky as well hoping toss dont see it 5. Gimicky once again, hoping he doesnt spot your nydus in your base. It comes down to if toss can get collosi out in time.
Overall, if you still dont believe that toss doesnt come out insanely ahead from being able to set this up, just watch combatex. Terrible player, yet he GM....hmm.....
If they ever remove the depot in lieue of this strategy, what's the math of scvs repairing a bunker wall versus the ideal 50 dmg / shot. Can a bunch of drones easily outdps the repair before a marine or two shows up?
state of sc2 in a nutshell. Zergs bitch, game gets patched instead of forcing them to innovate. Months later some random dudes like oh you all could have just done this and made that thing you wouldnt shut up about totally terrible.
fucking lol. its all idra's fault, he legitimized the bitching.
On September 01 2011 13:28 Incandenza wrote: If they ever remove the depot in lieue of this strategy, what's the math of scvs repairing a bunker wall versus the ideal 50 dmg / shot. Can a bunch of drones easily outdps the repair before a marine or two shows up?
ya, I am concern about this too. But I dont think someone would pull such a large amount of scv to be able to out repair it. If the repair rate is stronger, then the other option would be to bust it before it completes. How that will go iono :/
A Korean Protoss pro MilkyWay has just released a method to completely stop apylon/bunker wall in at the opponent's ramp between the base and the natural.
I personally believe that artificial controls over game plays must be minimized, so I'm creating a new thread to inform this tip, encouraging foreign tourneys that use neutral supply depot to prevent wall in rush to remove those depots from the map, since the particular play can be overcome with the tip Milkyway provided.
The tip is very simple. When your ramp is blocked by your opponent, you first gather your workers near by the ramp. Then you should click on a close mineral patch in your natural. The workers will stack right in front of the wall. You should A-click the wall, which will instantly cause your slack to go loose. You should quickly re-click the mineral patch, and keep doing this until the wall is broken.
According to Milkyway, this method will deal a damage of 50~60(depending on your neat execution and worker counts) per attack and you will most likely break through the wall when the first cannon is about 50% done. You should force cancel the cannon/ other bunkers under construction using your workers.
Milkyway added in comments that Protoss will virtually have 0% winrate if their cannon rush fails this way, since Zerg would suffer almost 0 damage(little mining time), while Protoss would lose 3 pylons and a few cannons. He even recommends Zerg players to induce Protoss to do cannon rush if the zerg player is confident with his execution of this Wall Breaker method. He asserts that this will 100% prevent/stop cannon and bunker walling in rush, if executed properly by the defender. He also said that Zergs should always take expansions first to maximize the advantage.
I never liked foreign tourneys preventing wall in type rushes by artificial means because you actually can prevent it with pure micro skills such as by putting your worker on patrol and using your workers to repel your opponent's probes/scvs/marines. It just required some attention and fair micro.
Anyways, since the hard counter has been released, I hope we do not see neutral supply depots to prevent wall ins on foreign tourney maps anymore.
This is my first thread, so I hope I didn't mess up anything big. Rejoice, Zerg players.
Milkyway's original post was blinded because angry Protoss mobs thumbed down this tip(it was more like prank thumb downs because Protoss is doing so poorly in Korea. With today's result, Protoss's winrate in current GSL dropped to 31%. I'm mentioning this to explain why Milkyway's great thread was blinded, so please stay refrained from off topic balance posts.)
So this is obviously going to mean that Zerg has a viable defense for a cannon wall-in and should have some lighter, but still effective implications for bunker wall-ins.
I think this small technique, refined of course, will work wonders for early game base defense for Zerg and am opening a mirror thread here to discuss the utility of the tactic rather than removing the depot from maps.
Definitely something that can refined, the zerg doing the trick can also do so with 1/3 of the drones (same result as seen obviously in the video). Should work really well if you have 100+ apm to spam click the minerals...
On September 01 2011 05:07 See.Blue wrote: Can probes do this, say as a way to oneshot zerglings in your mineral line during a 6pool?
All workers
You are implying to stack them all then focus fire the closest zergling?
Yeah. That seems to be its biggest use to me as a toss player. Spam click on mineral patch, let lings surround ball of probes, then attack click a ling, oneshotting it, then rinse wash repeat.
This probably wouldn't be as effective as just amoving.
Really? It could be done rapidly and that'd kill any lings that venture into your mineral line...
When has only 1 ling ever went into a mineral line? It's most commonly ling run-bys, which are commonly ~10 lings. in that case, you're just overkilling one ling at a time, while you can click a mineral patch and surround by attack move (or, just run away and warp in units if you arent on cd).
I dont see how this changes anything zvp, 3 pylon wall is just a cute trick that delays expo. The best response so far is what i saw sen do with 5 banelings 1 zergling busting and killing all 3 pylons at the same time. Gives Z worker advantage and you can take a 3rd quickly if toss went forge nexus.
Dimaga's right. The pylon and cannon behind minerals when you hatch first is why you DONT hatch first zvp and thats not gonna change.
On September 01 2011 14:45 T0fuuu wrote: I dont see how this changes anything zvp, 3 pylon wall is just a cute trick that delays expo. The best response so far is what i saw sen do with 5 banelings 1 zergling busting and killing all 3 pylons at the same time. Gives Z worker advantage and you can take a 3rd quickly if toss went forge nexus.
Dimaga's right. The pylon and cannon behind minerals when you hatch first is why you DONT hatch first zvp and thats not gonna change.
Solution might be different, but theres a point as he stated, this WONT change the match up. It is just another good trick to know that might save your ass sometime in the future.
You can do this the the pylons behind your minerals too guys...
Well possibly, it'll probably depend on position. But it might prove to turn out better than the standard cancel hatch and all in methods most zergs are using to get to stop the cannon rush.
I imagine this trick has effectively stopped most canon use against zerg.
On September 01 2011 14:57 Uncultured wrote: You can do this the the pylons behind your minerals too guys...
Well possibly, it'll probably depend on position. But it might prove to turn out better than the standard cancel hatch and all in methods most zergs are using to get to stop the cannon rush.
I imagine this trick has effectively stopped most canon use against zerg.
I doubt this would work behind your own mineral line. The worker pathing is too good to get stuck like that.
Umm just keep a drone at your ramp? but thats easier said then done right.
Pulling all your drones seems kind of redic if you ask me, sure u may break out even investment wise, but no one seems to take into account that the toss is still mining, and you are not.
So lets say in a perfect world, toss drops 450 mins, and u lost 450 mins in mining time, cool we are even, nope incorrect toss has been mining for the last minute and a half and has mined another 400, while u have mined prob lets say 50 or prob more, because you made another drone, when u pulled, i meen i hope u would lol. So the zerg base is staying at the 5 min mark, while the toss base is blossoming into a collosi making butterfly.
rofl imagine screwing up the trick, and not kill the pylon in time, might as well facepalm and gg out. but someone else has prob already made my point and made me look like a douche
On September 01 2011 14:57 Uncultured wrote: You can do this the the pylons behind your minerals too guys...
Well possibly, it'll probably depend on position. But it might prove to turn out better than the standard cancel hatch and all in methods most zergs are using to get to stop the cannon rush.
I imagine this trick has effectively stopped most canon use against zerg.
I doubt this would work behind your own mineral line. The worker pathing is too good to get stuck like that.
No, he's right. There could be pylon positions that would let this work. You can stack workers on a mineral patch by rapidly right-clicking on it; if the position the workers stack on is within attack range of one of the pylons, you could get the same kind of stacked attack to work.
In fact, I'm going to test this tonight, I think, because this would be really cool in PvP to be able to block those boss cannon rushes.
On September 01 2011 14:57 Uncultured wrote: You can do this the the pylons behind your minerals too guys...
Well possibly, it'll probably depend on position. But it might prove to turn out better than the standard cancel hatch and all in methods most zergs are using to get to stop the cannon rush.
I imagine this trick has effectively stopped most canon use against zerg.
Show me how you do it behind a mineral line. The drones will just walk around the mineral. This trick sometimes makes me have to click on a second expos mineral line on maps like crypt because your workers have to stack up somewhere at the bottom of the ramp or they will just go to a cliff instead.
A lot of useful information so far it seems, did a little testing on this myself, overall it seems pretty useless only seems to be viable against this exact scenario bunkers or pylons at the end of a choke(no need to be a ramp so it works on tal'darim) it doesn't seem to be of any use holding a 6 pool though I was controlling both units so the result (which ranged from all drones dead with 4 lings alive to all lings dead with 14/16 drones alive) is somewhat inconclusive.
However I did a quick test (detailed in video below) and basically when performed correctly it kills a pylon at the almost exact speed of a worker surround on a pylon also (thus being very useful in this scenario) haven't tried any of that shift click stuff so perhaps with that you can even out dps a standard surround.
On September 01 2011 15:36 Regogreiki wrote: Umm just keep a drone at your ramp? but thats easier said then done right.
Pulling all your drones seems kind of redic if you ask me, sure u may break out even investment wise, but no one seems to take into account that the toss is still mining, and you are not.
So lets say in a perfect world, toss drops 450 mins, and u lost 450 mins in mining time, cool we are even, nope incorrect toss has been mining for the last minute and a half and has mined another 400, while u have mined prob lets say 50 or prob more, because you made another drone, when u pulled, i meen i hope u would lol. So the zerg base is staying at the 5 min mark, while the toss base is blossoming into a collosi making butterfly.
rofl imagine screwing up the trick, and not kill the pylon in time, might as well facepalm and gg out. but someone else has prob already made my point and made me look like a douche
This is terrible logic. Toss loses 450 minerals early on, Zerg loses 450 minerals later on. In the end, the same amount of minerals are lost. If anything, in this situation, Protoss is more screwed because early income is more important than later income.
However, I'm still not convinced that the mineral loss from this technique will allow the game to proceed with standard advantages, because you either have to delay your queen if you went pool first since you lose minerals during the time you are supposed to start making it, or you cut a lot of drones if you hatch first, since you should have also dropped your pool and have to either cut drones to have enough money for the queen or you delay the queen even more.
For Protoss, it's relatively easy to cut the gateway/cyber so you cut tech instead of econ, so there's no damage there in the long run.
In other words, I feel like even if mineral advantages are the same for both sides, the queen must get delayed in some fashion, resulting in a Zerg disadvantage.
I posted this in the other thread, but I thought I'd do so again here. This more clearly illustrates why the shift method can do more damage overall. Again, forgive my excitement; at the time just demonstrating for a couple clan/teammates in vent.
I actually don't think this is good evidence of shift clicking being better at all, doing the same thing without shift clicking much faster you have 130 probes (hard to read with low quality vid but I think that is correct) with that many using regular clicking for both attacking and mining will 1 shot the pylon instantly as opposed to over 1-2 seconds.
I also noticed there seems to be a delay where you are stacking up I'm assuming this is just because you waited a second or two to press shift for the sake of the video but if not this would also make it much slower.
having said all of this it might be quicker to shift click with fewer workers but its also more difficult and easier to mess up unless there is a substantial increase in speed (which I doubt given that you are always limited by the worker attack speed) I don't think shift clicking is ever going to be a good idea.
I know its been said earlier in the thread but this doesn't work on shattered, I havent had time to test it on other maps. If it works on Shakeuras and Tal Darim I'll be happy. Hell even being able to hatch first on shakeuras is awesome.
On September 01 2011 15:36 Regogreiki wrote: Umm just keep a drone at your ramp? but thats easier said then done right.
Pulling all your drones seems kind of redic if you ask me, sure u may break out even investment wise, but no one seems to take into account that the toss is still mining, and you are not.
So lets say in a perfect world, toss drops 450 mins, and u lost 450 mins in mining time, cool we are even, nope incorrect toss has been mining for the last minute and a half and has mined another 400, while u have mined prob lets say 50 or prob more, because you made another drone, when u pulled, i meen i hope u would lol. So the zerg base is staying at the 5 min mark, while the toss base is blossoming into a collosi making butterfly.
rofl imagine screwing up the trick, and not kill the pylon in time, might as well facepalm and gg out. but someone else has prob already made my point and made me look like a douche
This is terrible logic. Toss loses 450 minerals early on, Zerg loses 450 minerals later on. In the end, the same amount of minerals are lost. If anything, in this situation, Protoss is more screwed because early income is more important than later income.
However, I'm still not convinced that the mineral loss from this technique will allow the game to proceed with standard advantages, because you either have to delay your queen if you went pool first since you lose minerals during the time you are supposed to start making it, or you cut a lot of drones if you hatch first, since you should have also dropped your pool and have to either cut drones to have enough money for the queen or you delay the queen even more.
For Protoss, it's relatively easy to cut the gateway/cyber so you cut tech instead of econ, so there's no damage there in the long run.
In other words, I feel like even if mineral advantages are the same for both sides, the queen must get delayed in some fashion, resulting in a Zerg disadvantage.
The problem with your thinking is that you arent taking account that to do this they have to delay their gateway a ton, which means zerg gets to make a bunch of extra drones that would normally have to be lings to scout with or defend themselfs from potential early stalkers and such, also we still get the extra hatch worth of larva, and besides its okay to delay the queens a little bit since you dont need the larva from the inject right away every time, you wouldnt have the minerals to spend them anyways, zerg is definitely far ahead after this.
I tested it on the shattered temple and my probes walked up to the corner of my base when I used my natural mineral line. So I used the base up in the corner and the probes went to the right place. However then I had to move my screen back and forth to click on the pylon. Of course this was my own pylons not enemy pylons.
I didn't have a friend to test with so I'm wondering if anyone has tried mineral walk, attack move to see if it was any less effective then clicking on the pylon you want to kill.
btw: It took 16 probes 20 seconds to kill the pylon manually, 25 seconds with shift que for me.
Edit: Did some testing with a friend on shattered temple. Probes walk to the wrong spot unless you use the second natural or gold. This makes it much more difficult since you have to move your screen back and forth. I tried attack move but it was much less effective. You still have to click on the pylon for maximum effect.
cannon behind natural minerals is not as bad as at your choke.
If he cannons behind your natural's minerals, then his own natural is exposed. If he cannons your choke, then those cannons and pylons are both defending and attacking. You can't do a "nestea" spine crawler rush, or quick roach push, or ling runby, or whatever.
It also prevents you from taking and expo somewhere else by just scouting a little. If you put a hatch on your "third", he can just send the first zealot or even make a pylon and a couple cannons and you can do nothing about it.
If he starts putting pylons behind my nat in such a way i know i'm not going to be able to defend, i cancel at the last time and i build a hatch at his own natural with my drone scout (i scout at 10 always). He spends at least 1 pylon and 2 cannons at preveting my natural, and i spend 1 drone and 300 minerals to prevent his. plus after the hatch finishes it will spread creep and delay for quite some time. And if he doesnt have a zealot in time (and maybe even then), you can make a queen and put down a tumor, or inject and make 5 roaches right there. You can take there a couple drones from your main to make a couple spines.
Then killing the cannons at your natural with roaches is easyer than at the choke as you will be able to micro hurt roaches out before they die. At the choke you usually can't.
If i can't put the hatch at his natural, i sometimes put it inside their base. Even if they see it right away, they will keep spending. Either attacking with a bunch of probes, or making cannons around it, or rushing gateways. It hurts him. You can cancel, build again somewhere while droning, etc.
So depends on map, and a lot of things. But in short, i think cannons cannons behind your nat (if you cancel in time) is not as bad as cannons in your choke, so this drone drill find is huge
I had this done to me in a ladder after I thought he was an idiot for going hatch first so blatantly... except he did it MUCH more efficiently than that video. I think it took about 4 sets of attacks to kill the pylon.
dumbest "trick" ever, having like 15 drones waste mining time just for such a time-consuming micro, the mineral lost in that 30 sec was probaly over 300, while the opponent can easily just build 2 new pylons or something behind it.
mild seven you do realize it costs minerals to build the pylons and cannons right? if he walls off and builds 2 more pylons behind it thats 500 minerals wasted, thus the zerg actually got off better.
On September 02 2011 01:00 Tokyla wrote: mild seven you do realize it costs minerals to build the pylons and cannons right? if he walls off and builds 2 more pylons behind it thats 500 minerals wasted, thus the zerg actually got off better.
with 15 drones, it's more than 300 minerals, it was a modest guess, and you are obviously blind, you don't even need the canons to slow this newb-move down, just rebuilding pylons, which you only 2-3 of will waste the zerg enough mining time to more than make up for it especially when this "trick" uses that many drones
I'll just leave this here - it works with SCV repair too.
This can be useful for Terran bottom of the ramp wall of. In regular scenario zerglins have a much bigger surface area than SCVs and thus the depot can get slowly destroyed. With this you can bypass the repairing SCV limit.
On September 02 2011 01:00 Tokyla wrote: mild seven you do realize it costs minerals to build the pylons and cannons right? if he walls off and builds 2 more pylons behind it thats 500 minerals wasted, thus the zerg actually got off better.
with 15 drones, it's more than 300 minerals, it was a modest guess, and you are obviously blind, you don't even need the canons to slow this newb-move down, just rebuilding pylons, which you only 2-3 of will waste the zerg enough mining time to more than make up for it especially when this "trick" uses that many drones
I don't see how you see "500 minerals" wasted.
I've been walled in when I 14 gas 14 pooled and it still blocks me in before zerglings come out. The pool just doesn't finish in time. But with this technique I can take down a pylon just in time for my zerglings to come out and bust down everything else very easily. If I can't take out that first pylon then the zerglings won't kill it in time to prevent the cannon and I'll still be stuck in my base. So I think its a good trick. It may not help you all that much if you 15 hatched but it can certainly help you in other situations.
well the only reason a protoss will wall off a zerg is too slow down his macro, fast expanding while the protoss himself will fast expand to give himself an edge, however due to this trick the zerg can break down the protoss wall and expo and so the protoss would either make more pylons to try to stop the zerg as much as possible but committing more of his resources into the wall while all the zerg needs to do is to break down 1 pylon and get back to droning while he uses 4 to break down the others or a cannon if the other pylon finishes and making his expansion. I'm not an expert but i think that's about it. You should watch Destiny he actually did this this morning and won so it is pretty good.
On September 02 2011 00:54 MildSeven wrote: dumbest "trick" ever, having like 15 drones waste mining time just for such a time-consuming micro, the mineral lost in that 30 sec was probaly over 300, while the opponent can easily just build 2 new pylons or something behind it.
As you might or might not know, mining time is almost a non-issue in this situation and if that's all you lose, Z is lightyears ahead.
On September 02 2011 03:00 RichWing wrote: I just thought of something. How about a 6pool vs P/T incorporating your workers to utilize this trick to break down their wall fast. Would that work?
Damn, i wanted to do that and feel original
maybe 10 pool -> 2 gas -> 6lings -> gas cancel
so you would have 6 lings and 9 drones to drill. I guess it could work,
Milkyway posted a screenshot. He says it take roughly 20 seconds in game time. You can also break the middle pylon, which will force protoss to build 3 extra plyons to re-wall.
On September 02 2011 01:17 SifySify wrote: I'll just leave this here - it works with SCV repair too.
This can be useful for Terran bottom of the ramp wall of. In regular scenario zerglins have a much bigger surface area than SCVs and thus the depot can get slowly destroyed. With this you can bypass the repairing SCV limit.
Does that actually work? I thought repair has an much faster "refire" rate, ie almost constant, compared to slow worker attacks.
On September 02 2011 03:00 RichWing wrote: I just thought of something. How about a 6pool vs P/T incorporating your workers to utilize this trick to break down their wall fast. Would that work?
It sounds like it wouldn't work as well as you might hope.
For one, your zerglings would be pushed away from attacking the wall while your drones were drilling, meaning you wouldn't nibble down the wall that much faster.
Two, you'd only have a handful of drones to drill with anyhow, meaning you'd be sacrificing any reinforcing lings to potentially take down the wall a tiny bit faster.
Three, I feel like you could use 2-3 early drones to prevent the wall from being completed at all, but
Four, them not walling should actually be scarier than them walling if you're 6, 7, or 9 pooling.
On September 02 2011 03:00 RichWing wrote: I just thought of something. How about a 6pool vs P/T incorporating your workers to utilize this trick to break down their wall fast. Would that work?
It sounds like it wouldn't work as well as you might hope.
For one, your zerglings would be pushed away from attacking the wall while your drones were drilling, meaning you wouldn't nibble down the wall that much faster.
Two, you'd only have a handful of drones to drill with anyhow, meaning you'd be sacrificing any reinforcing lings to potentially take down the wall a tiny bit faster.
Three, I feel like you could use 2-3 early drones to prevent the wall from being completed at all, but
Four, them not walling should actually be scarier than them walling if you're 6, 7, or 9 pooling.
The main thing isnt about 3 pylons + 2 cancelled cannons vs. 15 drone mining.
Its about having 2 hatcheries (2 base) against a protoss player that doesn't have a gateway. You can drone like a mad man and come out ahead EASY despite the mineral loss.
edit: perhaps its like paying 400 minerals so that protoss has nothing to apply pressure while you have a hatchery and 2 bases.
Really cool, i think he could've done it a bit better in the vid but it shows the point pretty well. I thik if executed better you lose less mining time and certainly pull ahead, especially if the toss actually lets all those building finish.
I posted this in the other thread, but I thought I'd do so again here. This more clearly illustrates why the shift method can do more damage overall. Again, forgive my excitement; at the time just demonstrating for a couple clan/teammates in vent.
I actually don't think this is good evidence of shift clicking being better at all, doing the same thing without shift clicking much faster you have 130 probes (hard to read with low quality vid but I think that is correct) with that many using regular clicking for both attacking and mining will 1 shot the pylon instantly as opposed to over 1-2 seconds.
I also noticed there seems to be a delay where you are stacking up I'm assuming this is just because you waited a second or two to press shift for the sake of the video but if not this would also make it much slower.
having said all of this it might be quicker to shift click with fewer workers but its also more difficult and easier to mess up unless there is a substantial increase in speed (which I doubt given that you are always limited by the worker attack speed) I don't think shift clicking is ever going to be a good idea.
I just tested it myself, you're correct. ButteryLlama had 110 probes in his video and with 110 probes I was able to simply 1 shot the pylon by shift-queuing gather command then manually attacking.
I said it in the first thread and I'll say it again: This is nice, but old. Stop giving people credits they don't deserve, damnit. This was discussed soo many times in the strategy forums and people still have issues with pylon blocks etc as there are so many problems around it. Even if you kill a pylon, you lost like... how many minerals?! Too many. And then there are the cannons, or the protoss could just build a gate and chronoboost zealots out while you lost so much to this etc
This is a similar issue to the spanishiwa stuff, now this guy will get so overrated because he "found out" something that other people discovered this way before him but didn't make a "look at me i'm so creative and good"-thing out of it.
You'd be asking: "So what?" Well, apparently people still have issues with that, even with that little trick. Just use the search function.
No offense to milkyway(I'm not even addressing him), but the reaction by the community is driving me insane. I could just steal a good idea, say it was mine and then get all the credit for it. great
I said it in the first thread and I'll say it again: This is nice, but old. Stop giving people credits they don't deserve, damnit. This was discussed soo many times in the strategy forums and people still have issues with pylon blocks etc as there are so many problems around it. Even if you kill a pylon, you lost like... how many minerals?! Too many. And then there are the cannons, or the protoss could just build a gate and chronoboost zealots out while you lost so much to this etc
This is a similar issue to the spanishiwa stuff, now this guy will get so overrated because he "found out" something that other people discovered this way before him but didn't make a "look at me i'm so creative and good"-thing out of it.
You'd be asking: "So what?" Well, apparently people still have issues with that, even with that little trick. Just use the search function.
No offense to milkyway(I'm not even addressing him), but the reaction by the community is driving me insane. I could just steal a good idea, say it was mine and then get all the credit for it. great
Wow your so pressed man. Look at all the people in this thread that learned about it and are happy. It does help deal with cannon contains which is far from a broken strategy.
I said it in the first thread and I'll say it again: This is nice, but old. Stop giving people credits they don't deserve, damnit. This was discussed soo many times in the strategy forums and people still have issues with pylon blocks etc as there are so many problems around it. Even if you kill a pylon, you lost like... how many minerals?! Too many. And then there are the cannons, or the protoss could just build a gate and chronoboost zealots out while you lost so much to this etc
This is a similar issue to the spanishiwa stuff, now this guy will get so overrated because he "found out" something that other people discovered this way before him but didn't make a "look at me i'm so creative and good"-thing out of it.
You'd be asking: "So what?" Well, apparently people still have issues with that, even with that little trick. Just use the search function.
No offense to milkyway(I'm not even addressing him), but the reaction by the community is driving me insane. I could just steal a good idea, say it was mine and then get all the credit for it. great
Wow your so pressed man. Look at all the people in this thread that learned about it and are happy. It does help deal with cannon contains which is far from a broken strategy.
I can't even tell if I came up with that ingame or if I read it in the strategy forums before because this is nothing new... I just don't want to have another overrated player because of this, we all know what happens afterwards. Thats all.
On September 02 2011 03:00 RichWing wrote: I just thought of something. How about a 6pool vs P/T incorporating your workers to utilize this trick to break down their wall fast. Would that work?
It sounds like it wouldn't work as well as you might hope.
For one, your zerglings would be pushed away from attacking the wall while your drones were drilling, meaning you wouldn't nibble down the wall that much faster.
Two, you'd only have a handful of drones to drill with anyhow, meaning you'd be sacrificing any reinforcing lings to potentially take down the wall a tiny bit faster.
Three, I feel like you could use 2-3 early drones to prevent the wall from being completed at all, but
Four, them not walling should actually be scarier than them walling if you're 6, 7, or 9 pooling.
Fifth, pathing for the drones doesn't work like that. They will not pile up on the ramp heading toward the minerals, rather they will go down the ramp and toward the wall at the bottom of the base (at least on XNC).
On September 02 2011 03:00 RichWing wrote: I just thought of something. How about a 6pool vs P/T incorporating your workers to utilize this trick to break down their wall fast. Would that work?
It sounds like it wouldn't work as well as you might hope.
For one, your zerglings would be pushed away from attacking the wall while your drones were drilling, meaning you wouldn't nibble down the wall that much faster.
Two, you'd only have a handful of drones to drill with anyhow, meaning you'd be sacrificing any reinforcing lings to potentially take down the wall a tiny bit faster.
Three, I feel like you could use 2-3 early drones to prevent the wall from being completed at all, but
Four, them not walling should actually be scarier than them walling if you're 6, 7, or 9 pooling.
Fifth, pathing for the drones doesn't work like that. They will not pile up on the ramp heading toward the minerals, rather they will go down the ramp and toward the wall at the bottom of the base (at least on XNC).
It wont work the way he wants it to but in an off topic kind of manner he could be really all in and do a drone mineral stack and then send it to the opponents base and surround the early fighting units of a protoss or non walled with drones until lings get a chance to move in.
A la this ridiculously hilarious tactic posted above
On September 01 2011 01:07 Goolpsy wrote: That is 15 drones working to take down a pylon? And then thereafter have to take down 1 or 2 cannons. How is that not alot of mining time? The Math is 3xpylon + 2 cancelled cannons = 362 minerals vs 15/all mining workers for 1 ingame minute.
I do not not the exact numbers, but is it certain that Zerg will be economically ahead after this?
ACtually a highly APMed player (anyone can spam for 10 seconds of their life really if you are at that level where you get pylon blocked) can break the pylon in 5-6 shots (which takes maybe 10 seconds) plus the 10 second pull time and the 10 second killing of the pylons (which you don't actually need all your drones to do).
SO IF you aren't playing at an extremely low pace, you should be easily able to not AUTO lose the game.
I dunno bro its either Auto Lose>Not auto lose. Even if you don't Auto-lose and you think you'll lose 6 minutes down the road, think about it. Protoss delayed his nexus, his gateway and his cannon to his front to do that block. If its a map like shakuras if you panick made zergslings + did this bust you probably could counter attack and win.
I think its a awesome trick to have if the situation occurs however, the problem is you will be quiet far behind due to pulling all your drones off minerals against a protoss who has 2 base with constant probe production and mining.
This seems amazing, but is this really cost effective? Considering that he pulls all of his drones off and that a cannon will finish by the time they break out.
Amazing find!!! Hopefully blizzard will keep it and instead get rid of those hideous supply depots. The supply depots only stop it but if they take it away and this becomes quite well known. Canon Rushes and blocks will still be viable but it will depend on the zergs micro to break it.
Yea idk if this is meant to be or not. I know that all units work like this when stacked. The problem is only workers can be stacked. Im very happy this trick helps though, even if its not intended.
I once put an FF behind lings attacking my cybercore, to trap them. It grouped all 15 lings on top of eachother. They killed the cybercore faster than if they had a full surround. TT. The engine acts weird when stacked/attacking at the same time.
So OP when the trick works on individual units. The cybercore litterally died in about 2 seconds.
I've tried it offensively with a 7-10 pool with a friend and it can work, but in most maps you dont have a mineral patch in the enemy's base that will stack your drones against their wall. On most the drones will stack against the cliff somewhere else.
On September 02 2011 23:26 ElPeque.fogata wrote: I've tried it offensively with a 7-10 pool with a friend and it can work, but in most maps you dont have a mineral patch in the enemy's base that will stack your drones against their wall. On most the drones will stack against the cliff somewhere else.
In case of a fast expand it may be easier.
Uhh, what kind of P FE's against a 7-10 pool Z?
(hint: any decent P scouts the Z before actually putting the nexus down)
On September 02 2011 17:13 ReketSomething wrote: The main thing isnt about 3 pylons + 2 cancelled cannons vs. 15 drone mining.
Its about having 2 hatcheries (2 base) against a protoss player that doesn't have a gateway. You can drone like a mad man and come out ahead EASY despite the mineral loss.
edit: perhaps its like paying 400 minerals so that protoss has nothing to apply pressure while you have a hatchery and 2 bases.
Took 10 pages for someone to finally say this.
After the pylon wall is down, what does toss have? Nothing. That means zerg can just drone up without even scouting for a good 4 minutes, on two bases, and toss has absolutely nothing to follow up with.
Even if the zerg player loses in mining time, they will eventually come out ahead as toss has no means to keep the zerg player honest.
On September 02 2011 23:26 ElPeque.fogata wrote: I've tried it offensively with a 7-10 pool with a friend and it can work, but in most maps you dont have a mineral patch in the enemy's base that will stack your drones against their wall. On most the drones will stack against the cliff somewhere else.
In case of a fast expand it may be easier.
Uhh, what kind of P FE's against a 7-10 pool Z?
(hint: any decent P scouts the Z before actually putting the nexus down)
sure, but he already put his pylon down there (shakuras), and now he is going to nexus if the zerg goes fast expand or forge and save money to complete the wall if the zerg went 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 pool, right?
As zerg you usually find yourself hitting at some gateway or pylon, then some cannon completes and its over (and you just lost the game).
Maybe you can send the 6, 7 or 8 drones to drill the wall before the lings get there. I would expect the protoss to not have many probes to repel 6+ another 2 or 4 a little later and 6 or 8 drones, as he must cut probes to finish the wall.
I'd like to try that, but my friend doesn't know how to forge expand.
On September 02 2011 17:13 ReketSomething wrote: The main thing isnt about 3 pylons + 2 cancelled cannons vs. 15 drone mining.
Its about having 2 hatcheries (2 base) against a protoss player that doesn't have a gateway. You can drone like a mad man and come out ahead EASY despite the mineral loss.
edit: perhaps its like paying 400 minerals so that protoss has nothing to apply pressure while you have a hatchery and 2 bases.
Took 10 pages for someone to finally say this.
After the pylon wall is down, what does toss have? Nothing. That means zerg can just drone up without even scouting for a good 4 minutes, on two bases, and toss has absolutely nothing to follow up with.
Even if the zerg player loses in mining time, they will eventually come out ahead as toss has no means to keep the zerg player honest.
Its not that it took 10 pages. Its just generally common knowledge to know what you posted. Most already know what you posted. If people are trying to argue that zerg isn't ahead, then they aren't thinking of 2 mins after you defend, or they aren't zerg. If you go for a 3 pylon block and a cannon, and he breaks it and you dont get a cancel on anything. He is free to take 3 bases with no pressure.
This trick is good, it works. Zerg players need to start practicing it and learning the right amount of drones to pull, I feel like 8 drones pulled as soon as the last pylon finishes is more than enough to break it.
The only thing zerg need to be afraid of, is if the protoss isn't macroing while doing this. Because if that happens they can use a gw to block the pylon thats dieing. And if theres one thing a zerg doesn't want, its a 2 pylon/gw wall blocking them into their main with that gw making zealots.
If you have a scout in the protoss base though, you will know if he is throwing down the nexus or the gw at home or if he is still making probes/etc.
Another note, for zerg users who can't perform this trick. If a protoss 3 pylons and cannons you into your main. Use your scouting drone to make a hatch in his base.
Im serious. Unless he spends over 600 minerals on pylons/canons near the hatch you can go roach back home, and when the hatch pops make a queen and roaches from the the proxy hatch. It works hella good, because we have spent soo much money containing you, and then more than likely we expod.
3 roaches can pretty much devastate everything. Cheese the cheeser. Its why when i cannon i dont do ramp wallins. You insta lose to a good proxy hatch.
In these videos it takes almost 30 seconds for 15 workers to break through the first pylon starting from the time the workers were pulled off of the mineral line. 1 worker gathers 40-50 minerals per minute so worst case scenario you going to loose out on 375 minerals to break down the first pylon assuming you can execute the drill properly.
Personally id much rather loose the mining time than be confined to 1 base for too long as zerg. Once you confined as zerg your severely limited in options which makes it easy for toss to prepare for anything you can throw at them.
On September 03 2011 00:09 ohampatu wrote: Another note, for zerg users who can't perform this trick. If a protoss 3 pylons and cannons you into your main. Use your scouting drone to make a hatch in his base.
Im serious. Unless he spends over 600 minerals on pylons/canons near the hatch you can go roach back home, and when the hatch pops make a queen and roaches from the the proxy hatch. It works hella good, because we have spent soo much money containing you, and then more than likely we expod.
3 roaches can pretty much devastate everything. Cheese the cheeser. Its why when i cannon i dont do ramp wallins. You insta lose to a good proxy hatch.
or he spots it, pulls a few probes to force the cancel and you lose the game.
On September 03 2011 00:12 HTODethklok wrote: In these videos it takes almost 30 seconds for 15 workers to break through the first pylon starting from the time the workers were pulled off of the mineral line. 1 worker gathers 40-50 minerals per minute so worst case scenario you going to loose out on 375 minerals to break down the first pylon assuming you can execute the drill properly.
Personally id much rather loose the mining time than be confined to 1 base for too long as zerg. Once you confined as zerg your severely limited in options which makes it easy for toss to prepare for anything you can throw at them.
Also, we have yet to see someone as fluid as some of the high micro pros perform this. I think that once practiced a zerg could be able to do this with half the probes (like 8-10).
As i said, even if it takes 15 or 30 seconds, the only thing you have to worry about is a gw behind the dieing pylon. If that goes up. Your kinda screwed.
On September 03 2011 00:12 HTODethklok wrote: In these videos it takes almost 30 seconds for 15 workers to break through the first pylon starting from the time the workers were pulled off of the mineral line. 1 worker gathers 40-50 minerals per minute so worst case scenario you going to loose out on 375 minerals to break down the first pylon assuming you can execute the drill properly.
Personally id much rather loose the mining time than be confined to 1 base for too long as zerg. Once you confined as zerg your severely limited in options which makes it easy for toss to prepare for anything you can throw at them.
it takes about 17 seconds to take 1 pylon if you do the trick right, the guy in the video executed it horribly
On September 03 2011 00:09 ohampatu wrote: Another note, for zerg users who can't perform this trick. If a protoss 3 pylons and cannons you into your main. Use your scouting drone to make a hatch in his base.
Im serious. Unless he spends over 600 minerals on pylons/canons near the hatch you can go roach back home, and when the hatch pops make a queen and roaches from the the proxy hatch. It works hella good, because we have spent soo much money containing you, and then more than likely we expod.
3 roaches can pretty much devastate everything. Cheese the cheeser. Its why when i cannon i dont do ramp wallins. You insta lose to a good proxy hatch.
or he spots it, pulls a few probes to force the cancel and you lose the game.
A full sorround with 20 probes (you actually wont even have 20 probes, if he scouts the hatch instantly when it drops and pulls all he'll only have about 17. And you can cancel the hatch last minute and make him spend over 1k to defend. Your evening it up. You dont insta lose.
Your also forgetting how long it takes to kill a hatch. I have succesfully scouted the proxy hatch, and had 2 cannons down at the proxy hatch. I still had to pull about 10 probes and lost them all to the 5 roaches that finished.
Unless you get outplayed. Proxy hatching a FE Toss who wasted 600 minerals containing you will not cause you to lose. Your gonna even it up or win.
On September 03 2011 00:12 HTODethklok wrote: In these videos it takes almost 30 seconds for 15 workers to break through the first pylon starting from the time the workers were pulled off of the mineral line. 1 worker gathers 40-50 minerals per minute so worst case scenario you going to loose out on 375 minerals to break down the first pylon assuming you can execute the drill properly.
Personally id much rather loose the mining time than be confined to 1 base for too long as zerg. Once you confined as zerg your severely limited in options which makes it easy for toss to prepare for anything you can throw at them.
it takes about 17 seconds to take 1 pylon if you do the trick right, the guy in the video executed it horribly
Nice, 17 sounds about where i figured itd take with good micro.
I'd like to see somebody go run through tests like this.
Play a protoss, Let him put 3 pylons up, as soon as the third pylon finishes grab your probes and try and do the trick and break through before the cannon finishes.
Id like to see this with 6/7/8/9/10 drones to see what the minium is that allows you to break through the pylon quickly. Even if you pull 15 drones your gonna be ahead in about a minute. But i think zergs could capitalize off this quite a bit more. (again, this is assuming the toss doesn't block the area behind the dieing pylon with a gw).
On September 02 2011 23:26 ElPeque.fogata wrote: I've tried it offensively with a 7-10 pool with a friend and it can work, but in most maps you dont have a mineral patch in the enemy's base that will stack your drones against their wall. On most the drones will stack against the cliff somewhere else.
In case of a fast expand it may be easier.
Uhh, what kind of P FE's against a 7-10 pool Z?
(hint: any decent P scouts the Z before actually putting the nexus down)
sure, but he already put his pylon down there (shakuras), and now he is going to nexus if the zerg goes fast expand or forge and save money to complete the wall if the zerg went 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 pool, right?
As zerg you usually find yourself hitting at some gateway or pylon, then some cannon completes and its over (and you just lost the game).
Maybe you can send the 6, 7 or 8 drones to drill the wall before the lings get there. I would expect the protoss to not have many probes to repel 6+ another 2 or 4 a little later and 6 or 8 drones, as he must cut probes to finish the wall.
I'd like to try that, but my friend doesn't know how to forge expand.
Hmm I see. Incoming theorycrafting.
Shouldn't you pretty much always send drones first if your doing 6-10pool? I mean you're going to do it anyway (assuming you're actually doing an offensive drone drill)... it's completely all-in, so you should send your drones as soon as you can afford 6 or 8 zerglings.
If you're 6-pooling, your drones should be over there right before the forge finishes. If you're 10-pooling, your drones should be over there a little less than halfway through the cannon.
Either way the protoss has two options: wall off the top of his ramp or send most of his probes to defend the cannon until it finishes.
If he walls off his ramp and puts a cannon behind it, you should usually be able to break it and kill the cannon in time (ignoring the forge on low ground).
If he sends his probes to defend the cannon, you could just move your drones to his nexus to harass it while your zerglings are coming. (He would have to keep some of his probes there (up to half) to block the ramp from zerglings passing by the cannon). Your zerglings would be stopped but you could probably give him a run for his money with your drones vs his probes... until the cannon finishes and he doesn't need the probes at ramp anymore.
Interestingly enough, in my brain's flawed simulation of the game, sending probes to the ramp makes more sense in most of these cases (something I did not expect at all).
In conclusion, you made plenty of sense, my bad :D
On September 02 2011 23:26 ElPeque.fogata wrote: I've tried it offensively with a 7-10 pool with a friend and it can work, but in most maps you dont have a mineral patch in the enemy's base that will stack your drones against their wall. On most the drones will stack against the cliff somewhere else.
In case of a fast expand it may be easier.
Uhh, what kind of P FE's against a 7-10 pool Z?
(hint: any decent P scouts the Z before actually putting the nexus down)
sure, but he already put his pylon down there (shakuras), and now he is going to nexus if the zerg goes fast expand or forge and save money to complete the wall if the zerg went 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 pool, right?
As zerg you usually find yourself hitting at some gateway or pylon, then some cannon completes and its over (and you just lost the game).
Maybe you can send the 6, 7 or 8 drones to drill the wall before the lings get there. I would expect the protoss to not have many probes to repel 6+ another 2 or 4 a little later and 6 or 8 drones, as he must cut probes to finish the wall.
I'd like to try that, but my friend doesn't know how to forge expand.
Hmm I see. Incoming theorycrafting.
Shouldn't you pretty much always send drones first if your doing 6-10pool? I mean you're going to do it anyway (assuming you're actually doing an offensive drone drill)... it's completely all-in, so you should send your drones as soon as you can afford 6 or 8 zerglings.
If you're 6-pooling, your drones should be over there right before the forge finishes. If you're 10-pooling, your drones should be over there a little less than halfway through the cannon.
Either way the protoss has two options: wall off the top of his ramp or send most of his probes to defend the cannon until it finishes.
If he walls off his ramp and puts a cannon behind it, you should usually be able to break it and kill the cannon in time (ignoring the forge on low ground).
If he sends his probes to defend the cannon, you could just move your drones to his nexus to harass it while your zerglings are coming. (He would have to keep some of his probes there (up to half) to block the ramp from zerglings passing by the cannon). Your zerglings would be stopped but you could probably give him a run for his money with your drones vs his probes... until the cannon finishes and he doesn't need the probes at ramp anymore.
Interestingly enough, in my brain's flawed simulation of the game, sending probes to the ramp makes more sense in most of these cases (something I did not expect at all).
In conclusion, you made plenty of sense, my bad :D
Lately ive been doing what alot of the KR pros have been doing. Things like 12 forge 17 nexus instead of the 14 forge/15 nexus or other 14 forge builds.
Both can lose pretty quick to a 6 pool. I find that if i actually somehow scout the allin and all i have is my 12 forge or 14 forge, then i will put a cannon near bottom of my ramp and right click the cannon with all my probes and quehold the 1x1 area left at the bottom of my ramp.
Although normally, if you choose to FFE on some of these maps, its a BO Loss against 6/7 pool unless you get lucky with scouting first.
On September 03 2011 00:09 ohampatu wrote: Another note, for zerg users who can't perform this trick. If a protoss 3 pylons and cannons you into your main. Use your scouting drone to make a hatch in his base.
Im serious. Unless he spends over 600 minerals on pylons/canons near the hatch you can go roach back home, and when the hatch pops make a queen and roaches from the the proxy hatch. It works hella good, because we have spent soo much money containing you, and then more than likely we expod.
3 roaches can pretty much devastate everything. Cheese the cheeser. Its why when i cannon i dont do ramp wallins. You insta lose to a good proxy hatch.
Awful, awful advise. As a toss player, I have never, I repeat, never lost to an in base hatch before. All you do is place a pylon and a cannon when the hatch is half way done. Problem solved.
On September 03 2011 00:09 ohampatu wrote: Another note, for zerg users who can't perform this trick. If a protoss 3 pylons and cannons you into your main. Use your scouting drone to make a hatch in his base.
Im serious. Unless he spends over 600 minerals on pylons/canons near the hatch you can go roach back home, and when the hatch pops make a queen and roaches from the the proxy hatch. It works hella good, because we have spent soo much money containing you, and then more than likely we expod.
3 roaches can pretty much devastate everything. Cheese the cheeser. Its why when i cannon i dont do ramp wallins. You insta lose to a good proxy hatch.
or he spots it, pulls a few probes to force the cancel and you lose the game.
A full sorround with 20 probes (you actually wont even have 20 probes, if he scouts the hatch instantly when it drops and pulls all he'll only have about 17. And you can cancel the hatch last minute and make him spend over 1k to defend. Your evening it up. You dont insta lose.
Your also forgetting how long it takes to kill a hatch. I have succesfully scouted the proxy hatch, and had 2 cannons down at the proxy hatch. I still had to pull about 10 probes and lost them all to the 5 roaches that finished.
Unless you get outplayed. Proxy hatching a FE Toss who wasted 600 minerals containing you will not cause you to lose. Your gonna even it up or win.
How much larvae comes out of a newly built hatch? Three instantly?
On September 03 2011 00:09 ohampatu wrote: Another note, for zerg users who can't perform this trick. If a protoss 3 pylons and cannons you into your main. Use your scouting drone to make a hatch in his base.
Im serious. Unless he spends over 600 minerals on pylons/canons near the hatch you can go roach back home, and when the hatch pops make a queen and roaches from the the proxy hatch. It works hella good, because we have spent soo much money containing you, and then more than likely we expod.
3 roaches can pretty much devastate everything. Cheese the cheeser. Its why when i cannon i dont do ramp wallins. You insta lose to a good proxy hatch.
or he spots it, pulls a few probes to force the cancel and you lose the game.
A full sorround with 20 probes (you actually wont even have 20 probes, if he scouts the hatch instantly when it drops and pulls all he'll only have about 17. And you can cancel the hatch last minute and make him spend over 1k to defend. Your evening it up. You dont insta lose.
Your also forgetting how long it takes to kill a hatch. I have succesfully scouted the proxy hatch, and had 2 cannons down at the proxy hatch. I still had to pull about 10 probes and lost them all to the 5 roaches that finished.
Unless you get outplayed. Proxy hatching a FE Toss who wasted 600 minerals containing you will not cause you to lose. Your gonna even it up or win.
How much larvae comes out of a newly built hatch? Three instantly?
Only one comes immediately after the hatch is done.
On September 03 2011 00:09 ohampatu wrote: Another note, for zerg users who can't perform this trick. If a protoss 3 pylons and cannons you into your main. Use your scouting drone to make a hatch in his base.
Im serious. Unless he spends over 600 minerals on pylons/canons near the hatch you can go roach back home, and when the hatch pops make a queen and roaches from the the proxy hatch. It works hella good, because we have spent soo much money containing you, and then more than likely we expod.
3 roaches can pretty much devastate everything. Cheese the cheeser. Its why when i cannon i dont do ramp wallins. You insta lose to a good proxy hatch.
Awful, awful advise. As a toss player, I have never, I repeat, never lost to an in base hatch before. All you do is place a pylon and a cannon when the hatch is half way done. Problem solved.
I dont think you read me exactly. If a protoss doesn't contain, then proxy hatch is retarded. I'll give an example of some games ive played against high masters.
Protoss BO 12 forge 3 pylons, 1 cannon Goes back to bace, drops the gw, nexus, 1 cannon, and then a core to finish the ramp wall. At this point in the game, the zerg drone will be alive, unless zerg is bad. The zerg can hatch even if its scouted at this point. 1 pylon by the hatch (there wont be one) and then 2 cannons by the hatch will not kill that hatch before a queen and 3 larva pop. I say 2 cannons, because i believe a roach takes 3 hits to die. 1 cannon means the zerg can rally away from the cannon and let his hatch die. 2 cannons can sometimes kill the roaches as they pop. I have killed the hatch many times. Its when 2 roaches make it out alive and kill 20 probes that your fucked.
As long as zerg choose to do it after the naturals ramp is completed, toss cannot do anything apart from build pylons/cannons. You can make him build all of them and just cancel if the roaches wont ever make it out. Ive played a few zerg on ladder who have even said they always proxy hatch, even if just to wait untill the end to cancel and even the game up against toss.
Edit In: As i said, but others have seen. You dont need to let the hatch finish. Just put the hatch down after natural is walled off, and make him waste resources.
On September 03 2011 00:09 ohampatu wrote: Another note, for zerg users who can't perform this trick. If a protoss 3 pylons and cannons you into your main. Use your scouting drone to make a hatch in his base.
Im serious. Unless he spends over 600 minerals on pylons/canons near the hatch you can go roach back home, and when the hatch pops make a queen and roaches from the the proxy hatch. It works hella good, because we have spent soo much money containing you, and then more than likely we expod.
3 roaches can pretty much devastate everything. Cheese the cheeser. Its why when i cannon i dont do ramp wallins. You insta lose to a good proxy hatch.
or he spots it, pulls a few probes to force the cancel and you lose the game.
A full sorround with 20 probes (you actually wont even have 20 probes, if he scouts the hatch instantly when it drops and pulls all he'll only have about 17. And you can cancel the hatch last minute and make him spend over 1k to defend. Your evening it up. You dont insta lose.
Your also forgetting how long it takes to kill a hatch. I have succesfully scouted the proxy hatch, and had 2 cannons down at the proxy hatch. I still had to pull about 10 probes and lost them all to the 5 roaches that finished.
Unless you get outplayed. Proxy hatching a FE Toss who wasted 600 minerals containing you will not cause you to lose. Your gonna even it up or win.
How much larvae comes out of a newly built hatch? Three instantly?
1 at time. Do you know how long it takes 1 cannon to kill a hatch? Enough for a queen to pop, inject larve, and enough for 2 larva to spawn and morph into roaches.
Edit: Or a better answer: 1 at a time. the first larva is instant, the 2nd is 7 seconds later i believe. Those 2 will always become roaches no matter if 2 or 3 cannons are down unless you had your pylon built by the proxy hatch before the hatch went down. Instead of inject alot of people just do creep tumor as well.
On September 03 2011 00:09 ohampatu wrote: Another note, for zerg users who can't perform this trick. If a protoss 3 pylons and cannons you into your main. Use your scouting drone to make a hatch in his base.
Im serious. Unless he spends over 600 minerals on pylons/canons near the hatch you can go roach back home, and when the hatch pops make a queen and roaches from the the proxy hatch. It works hella good, because we have spent soo much money containing you, and then more than likely we expod.
3 roaches can pretty much devastate everything. Cheese the cheeser. Its why when i cannon i dont do ramp wallins. You insta lose to a good proxy hatch.
or he spots it, pulls a few probes to force the cancel and you lose the game.
A full sorround with 20 probes (you actually wont even have 20 probes, if he scouts the hatch instantly when it drops and pulls all he'll only have about 17. And you can cancel the hatch last minute and make him spend over 1k to defend. Your evening it up. You dont insta lose.
Your also forgetting how long it takes to kill a hatch. I have succesfully scouted the proxy hatch, and had 2 cannons down at the proxy hatch. I still had to pull about 10 probes and lost them all to the 5 roaches that finished.
Unless you get outplayed. Proxy hatching a FE Toss who wasted 600 minerals containing you will not cause you to lose. Your gonna even it up or win.
How much larvae comes out of a newly built hatch? Three instantly?
1 at time. Do you know how long it takes 1 cannon to kill a hatch? Enough for a queen to pop, inject larve, and enough for 2 larva to spawn and morph into roaches.
Edit: Or a better answer: 1 at a time. the first larva is instant, the 2nd is 7 seconds later i believe. Those 2 will always become roaches no matter if 2 or 3 cannons are down unless you had your pylon built by the proxy hatch before the hatch went down. Instead of inject alot of people just do creep tumor as well.
Dont probes have slightly longer range than drones? I cant seem to get as much damage per hit doing it with drones as with probes. Also I am using shattered temple - you cannot click the mineral patch at the expansion because they path to the cliff instead of stacking at the ramp. You have to use screen saves and do it like transfering workers in bw, f1 f2 etc.
On September 03 2011 01:33 samuraibael wrote: Dont probes have slightly longer range than drones? I cant seem to get as much damage per hit doing it with drones as with probes. Also I am using shattered temple - you cannot click the mineral patch at the expansion because they path to the cliff instead of stacking at the ramp. You have to use screen saves and do it like transfering workers in bw, f1 f2 etc.
What if you do it this way. Move command the drones to the front of the pylon. Or even select the drones your using and Attack click the pylon. Once they start attacking it. Right click the mineral patch on the other side of the wall. That should make them path to the minerals lines but still be in front of the pylon, Instead of pathing somewhere else. I think.
No they run back up the ramp and go the cliff. Only the mineral patches at the closest corner of the map for the respective starting position stacks them in the correct position. I suppose to use this we will need to learn the correct patches for every map/spawn location. Some maps might not even have one.
On September 03 2011 01:38 samuraibael wrote: No they run back up the ramp and go the wall.
With all drones selected, what if you move command them all right in front of the pylon, and then shift click queue by clicking on the other sides mining patch. I know there are easy ways to make the probe stay in front of the pylon, ive queued my probe a few times and it still went up ramp instead of running across the oustide wall.
Certain mineral patches seem to do the pathing differenet as well. Worker AI just so weird imho.
If Blizzard patches this away, I'm going to be so annoyed. This is brilliant. Let's not tell the Koreans and then have all zergs FE on Tal'Darim to induce the cannon rush.
On September 03 2011 01:38 samuraibael wrote: No they run back up the ramp and go the wall.
With all drones selected, what if you move command them all right in front of the pylon, and then shift click queue by clicking on the other sides mining patch. I know there are easy ways to make the probe stay in front of the pylon, ive queued my probe a few times and it still went up ramp instead of running across the oustide wall.
Certain mineral patches seem to do the pathing differenet as well. Worker AI just so weird imho.
I tried every mineral patch both right clicking and shift right clicking when the drones are on the ramp right in front of the pylon and each time they retreat back up the ramp and stack at the cliff. Using screen saves is the only possibility I think. It is not so much harder though, just requires slightly more muscle memory.
The time it takes to break a pylon seems to be this: 33 seconds auto attacking with 3 drones 30 seconds with 8 drones 20 seconds with 16 10 seconds with 32
On September 03 2011 01:38 samuraibael wrote: No they run back up the ramp and go the wall.
With all drones selected, what if you move command them all right in front of the pylon, and then shift click queue by clicking on the other sides mining patch. I know there are easy ways to make the probe stay in front of the pylon, ive queued my probe a few times and it still went up ramp instead of running across the oustide wall.
Certain mineral patches seem to do the pathing differenet as well. Worker AI just so weird imho.
I tried every mineral patch both right clicking and shift right clicking when the drones are on the ramp right in front of the pylon and each time they retreat back up the ramp and stack at the cliff. Using screen saves is the only possibility I think. It is not so much harder though, just requires slightly more muscle memory.
The time it takes to break a pylon seems to be this: 33 seconds auto attacking with 3 drones 30 seconds with 8 drones 20 seconds with 16 10 seconds with 32
So with 8 drones, you should be able to let the cannon to about 1/4th the way and still be able to stop it without any problems. Assuming toss doesn't gw block the pylon dieing.
On September 03 2011 01:40 tree.hugger wrote: If Blizzard patches this away, I'm going to be so annoyed. This is brilliant. Let's not tell the Koreans and then have all zergs FE on Tal'Darim to induce the cannon rush.
I have a feeling it will get patched. If it doesn't get patched then they should patch teh way zerglings stack when they are bunched together.
Idk if you saw my earlier post. But if 15 lings on on your ramp, and 4 of them are attacking (thats the amount normally allowed to attack). If you FF behind the lings but still almost on top of the cybercore/gw. All the lings stack up on top of eachother. All the lings can attack. This part needs to be fixed, cause it appears to be a bug and litterally i lost my cyber in about 2 seconds, but hopefully that wont affect worker stacking.
As far as I know the only ground units that can stack and still attack are workers and lings. If they take out lings, im fine with it.
Someone cannoned me, I did this, they just built even more cannons and pylons because they were clearly committing and everything was a waste of time because he didn't give a fuck if I killed his pylons
On September 03 2011 03:36 cactuschewer wrote: Someone cannoned me, I did this, they just built even more cannons and pylons because they were clearly committing and everything was a waste of time because he didn't give a fuck if I killed his pylons
Yes. Thats where it can get bad. Like on Taldarim. If he puts the 3 pylons and drops the cannon, he can put either 2 more pylons and/or a gateway to make sure you dont break it if hes fully committing. In my experiences. Either a 1 base nydus allin or the proxy hatch i mentioned earlier is a good way to break even with the toss. Not neccesarily win, and the game gets weird at that point, but its the only things i know that can punish him.
The second option you can do, is if he puts the 3 pylons and cannon up while your hatch is still making, cancel it and go somwhere else. You can hatch in a different place, and use roaches to break the pylon wall. Once the pylon wall is broken, ive found you can generally take the normal natural for a quick 3 bases. Cause we can't apply pressure after weve put that contain up.
On September 03 2011 03:36 cactuschewer wrote: Someone cannoned me, I did this, they just built even more cannons and pylons because they were clearly committing and everything was a waste of time because he didn't give a fuck if I killed his pylons
Yes. Thats where it can get bad. Like on Taldarim. If he puts the 3 pylons and drops the cannon, he can put either 2 more pylons and/or a gateway to make sure you dont break it if hes fully committing. In my experiences. Either a 1 base nydus allin or the proxy hatch i mentioned earlier is a good way to break even with the toss. Not neccesarily win, and the game gets weird at that point, but its the only things i know that can punish him.
The second option you can do, is if he puts the 3 pylons and cannon up while your hatch is still making, cancel it and go somwhere else. You can hatch in a different place, and use roaches to break the pylon wall. Once the pylon wall is broken, ive found you can generally take the normal natural for a quick 3 bases. Cause we can't apply pressure after weve put that contain up.
The point is that this is only good if the toss doesn't fully commit to this, and if he does, it's just a matter of time until you lose.
If you opened hatch first and he - went forge first: you have to kill all the pylons fast or he will place cannons, that will cost you so much that he can just build a gate and chronoboost zealots OR just build more pylons n cannons - went gate first and just faked the pylons: you can try to let the cannons there, but if he gets a forge right after the gate and you pretty much don't scout it(because it takes everything to kill the pylons) you are either killed by cannons or zealots - went gatge first and placed the forge right away: well you have to kill the pylons again, just that he will most likely have 1 or 2 zealots so hat you have to deal with these too, you will have to be insanely lucky to stop that
The easiest answer imho is just not going hatch first and/or to be extremely attentive to the probe, there's no other way around this.
This little trick only helps if the protoss - blocked your ramp for shits and giggles and - just plays his standard game without applying more pressure afterwards
This is the experience you get when browsing the strategy forums and I also experienced this myself.
I highly doubt that any decent protoss that commits to this "cheese" and gets your ramped blocked completely will ever lose against mineral-walk attacking drones.
this could be uses even more efficiently attack one of the pylons with 2 or 3 drones and do the trick with the rest of your drones ... what you guys think about it?
Thanks to this i got a dude to threaten me to ban me for hacking :D Milkyway = genius
This is revolutionary for zerg play in general.
Blizz should not patch this, blocking ramps is kind of a bitch(no offense) move and to be able to punish that is just how the game is supposed to work in my opinion.
I just went 11pool 18 hatch against a forge first who decided to wall me off with pylons. Using 2 lings and all my drones to drill, the pylon went down in no time. My 15 drones seemed to do about 1/6 of the pylon's health in damage with every drill.
On September 02 2011 23:26 ohampatu wrote: Yea idk if this is meant to be or not. I know that all units work like this when stacked. The problem is only workers can be stacked. Im very happy this trick helps though, even if its not intended.
I once put an FF behind lings attacking my cybercore, to trap them. It grouped all 15 lings on top of eachother. They killed the cybercore faster than if they had a full surround. TT. The engine acts weird when stacked/attacking at the same time.
So OP when the trick works on individual units. The cybercore litterally died in about 2 seconds.
So if this is true, can you use 10+ zealots and a few FFs to turbokill enemy structures? Think of implications for zlot/sentry vs bunkers, or later-game prism drops to snipe z tech buildings (protects the zlots vs lings/banes, too! lol!).
there are some maps on ladder like for example abyssal caverns where this trick doesn't work when you spawn top left and bottom right positions which tells me 2 things
1) maps are not balanced for every position (not symmetric) 2) this trick should either be fixed to work on every starting position or not work at all
Agreed. There should be a fixed result, not depending on a position. Keep this thread alive, guys. It definitely requires attention from game designers. Too few people have actually viewed it yet. It's just too huge to fade away and be forgotten. (Btw happy to see Destiny perform it). Someone should prolly post it on all b.net forums including different regions. And let there be no need for artificial supply depots as it creates confusion that is totally unnecessary . Btw has anybody done it against 2 bunkers yet? If yes please upload a video or a rep. Would like to see it in action
On September 01 2011 01:07 Goolpsy wrote: That is 15 drones working to take down a pylon? And then thereafter have to take down 1 or 2 cannons. How is that not alot of mining time? The Math is 3xpylon + 2 cancelled cannons = 362 minerals vs 15/all mining workers for 1 ingame minute.
I do not not the exact numbers, but is it certain that Zerg will be economically ahead after this?
usually protoss do this whenever they see a hatch first and no platrolling drone in FFE maps so considering that, not losing ur expansion and delaying his is a huge economical/tech advantage just for a 200(rough number) minerals ? i would say
To the person who said you can 'counter' cannon contains with proxy hatch inbase with scouting drone.
You realize any half decent player will always keep track of the scouting worker in their base, and won't let a hatch go unnoticed right? And even then, the best response is just 2 cannons on it when it's halfway done.
Anyways because of cannons behind mineral lines, I won't be hatching first against P still. However it is nice I can do something against wall-ins now, I normally patrol a drone if I haven't scouted P yet (or I do scout and see forge).
Please post how the trick works for every map you have tried it on - it would be much better than everyone testing each map for himself. Also - has anyone tried the trick on maps that have the natural's minerals in such position that the trick does not work - with the save screen and jump to screen hotkeys ? It is like 3 times more apm intensive but I think it could make it work at any map.
i liked the old idea of the 2 pylons behind the minerals and 1 cannon inbetween better then this, its less mins you spend and i think your pylons can be more easy be attacked by some sort of dirty queen from above or am i wrong ? so why the heck you need a complete wallof and "waste" 300 mins ? Most of the times your fine with just 2 pylos and on cannon to delay the expo.
On September 02 2011 17:13 ReketSomething wrote: The main thing isnt about 3 pylons + 2 cancelled cannons vs. 15 drone mining.
Its about having 2 hatcheries (2 base) against a protoss player that doesn't have a gateway. You can drone like a mad man and come out ahead EASY despite the mineral loss.
edit: perhaps its like paying 400 minerals so that protoss has nothing to apply pressure while you have a hatchery and 2 bases.
Took 10 pages for someone to finally say this.
After the pylon wall is down, what does toss have? Nothing. That means zerg can just drone up without even scouting for a good 4 minutes, on two bases, and toss has absolutely nothing to follow up with.
Even if the zerg player loses in mining time, they will eventually come out ahead as toss has no means to keep the zerg player honest.
Has anyone actually tried this in a real game? When I tested this with my friend he would just build his cannons at my cliff with as little surface area as possible(using one of the pylons at the ramp as a wall if possible) and even though I manage to bust out(took me on average 15 in-game seconds from the moment i started attacking the pylon, which seems about as effective as you can expect this to be), I can't kill the cannons and I don't have very many minerals to make enough lings to punish his expo.
On September 01 2011 01:07 Goolpsy wrote: That is 15 drones working to take down a pylon? And then thereafter have to take down 1 or 2 cannons. How is that not alot of mining time? The Math is 3xpylon + 2 cancelled cannons = 362 minerals vs 15/all mining workers for 1 ingame minute.
I do not not the exact numbers, but is it certain that Zerg will be economically ahead after this?
I believe 3 pylons + 2 cancelled cannons should be 375 minerals: a cannon costs 150 minerals and you get 75% of the cost back when you cancel a building so you should lose 37.5 minerals per cancelled cannon for a total of 75.
Intuitively to me zerg should be ahead after using this trick but the more I do the math the more it seems like zerg might be behind in terms of minerals spent by toss vs minerals lost by zerg. Perhaps the optimal solution is to bring just enough drones to break down the wall in time to kill the cannons? This definitely depends on how much people can refine this trick / how fast they can get it.
I love this trick! Very exciting to see a broodwar-esque trick like this discovered. It also seems like this should be a big help to zergs dealing with stupid pylon walloffs.
Well, IMO, the thing is that protoss player, executing such a rush commits to it heavily. If you clear you bases from his cannons, that means you can safely expand and do whatever you want since protoss wouldn't have his gateway started, while you will be taking your natural/building pool or whatever depending on your opener. One more thing, that have to feel very badly for P, so you will have kinda of mood-edge
I just wanted to say thanks for this now I feel confident to defend cannon rush when going hatch first. So after I read this I started a game and it was on shakuras planetu so I play zerg and was vs a toss player and as usuall I would go pool first but it hit me to try going hatch first and see what will happend. So I went hatch first and was excepting a cannon rush and it happend so here a replay of me using this trick and defending the rush and winning in the end. Just wanted to shere it hope zerg players enjoy it
On September 03 2011 15:31 Belial88 wrote: To the person who said you can 'counter' cannon contains with proxy hatch inbase with scouting drone.
You realize any half decent player will always keep track of the scouting worker in their base, and won't let a hatch go unnoticed right? And even then, the best response is just 2 cannons on it when it's halfway done.
Anyways because of cannons behind mineral lines, I won't be hatching first against P still. However it is nice I can do something against wall-ins now, I normally patrol a drone if I haven't scouted P yet (or I do scout and see forge).
you do realize this is Catz's standard response to getting cannon rushed? and even if the hatch dies because of 2 cannons the P spent more money? and you can even go 1 base mutalisks after the proxy hatch to get the win? and the idea of the hatch is not to win, but to get 3 roaches out and 1shot workers with them?
I guess this shows how viable it is. With proper control those pylons go down craaaazy fast. And as has been said before. If you take down the contain the protoss will have absolutely nothing for the next few minutes and you're free to drone off of 2 bases like crazy.
On September 03 2011 15:31 Belial88 wrote: To the person who said you can 'counter' cannon contains with proxy hatch inbase with scouting drone.
You realize any half decent player will always keep track of the scouting worker in their base, and won't let a hatch go unnoticed right? And even then, the best response is just 2 cannons on it when it's halfway done.
Anyways because of cannons behind mineral lines, I won't be hatching first against P still. However it is nice I can do something against wall-ins now, I normally patrol a drone if I haven't scouted P yet (or I do scout and see forge).
you do realize this is Catz's standard response to getting cannon rushed? and even if the hatch dies because of 2 cannons the P spent more money? and you can even go 1 base mutalisks after the proxy hatch to get the win? and the idea of the hatch is not to win, but to get 3 roaches out and 1shot workers with them?
Glad somebody agreed. I posted that, and another thing or two that could be used to just even it up. Not neccesarrily win.
I saw some replied to my post about the lings stacking on top of eachother (i think its a bug) and killing my cybercore in like 2 seconds. I think only lings are able to stack and attack. Trying to do that with zealots/stalkers/roaches wont work. Only like 2 units will attack and the rest will be stuck.
People keep mentioning being able to drone like crazy if they break that. Yes and no. If you really want to get ahead, as soon as you break it, double expo. If you already have your natural up, take your third. its far better to get the 3 hatchs up while toss is playing catchup then get 2 bases saturated.
Even if he decides to do a 6 gate or 7 gate blink +2 or any other 2 base allin. You have about 7 minutes of macro before those will hit.
I don't see why toss are complaining. You can still punish zerg by cannoning behind or in between mineral lines. Blocking the ramp is so abusive to zerg since you can do it even if the zerg goes pool first. The game is over if the opponent knows what to do to keep their lead. The question of whether zerg is economically ahead after not mining for that long, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Protoss will need to delay their expansion to setup their base defence or risk slow-lings run-by. If only nestea did this against mvp's bunker rush =/
On September 04 2011 03:44 babysimba wrote: I don't see why toss are complaining. You can still punish zerg by cannoning behind or in between mineral lines. Blocking the ramp is so abusive to zerg since you can do it even if the zerg goes pool first. The game is over if the opponent knows what to do to keep their lead. The question of whether zerg is economically ahead after not mining for that long, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Protoss will need to delay their expansion to setup their base defence or risk slow-lings run-by. If only nestea did this against mvp's bunker rush =/
Um, i dont think any toss are complaining. Mostly this is zerg players discussing best how to perform the trick. And yes, we know canons in other places suck.
To sum up for people joining late.
Watch the op to figure out how to do it. And then if you want to time it best:
Wait untill the third pylon finishes, pull 8-10 drones (no reason to really go above 9, but 10 is safe). Will take you about 7 realtime seconds. (15ish in game settings).
Things to lookout for: Protoss not dropping his expo or gw at home for defense after. Toss putting a gw behind the dieing pylon.
On September 02 2011 23:26 ohampatu wrote: Yea idk if this is meant to be or not. I know that all units work like this when stacked. The problem is only workers can be stacked. Im very happy this trick helps though, even if its not intended.
I once put an FF behind lings attacking my cybercore, to trap them. It grouped all 15 lings on top of eachother. They killed the cybercore faster than if they had a full surround. TT. The engine acts weird when stacked/attacking at the same time.
So OP when the trick works on individual units. The cybercore litterally died in about 2 seconds.
So if this is true, can you use 10+ zealots and a few FFs to turbokill enemy structures? Think of implications for zlot/sentry vs bunkers, or later-game prism drops to snipe z tech buildings (protects the zlots vs lings/banes, too! lol!).
MC in his (video)radio interview uses FF's to group units up tight like that, then he uses Colossus for super AOE. This thread should be called -Unit Stacking 101. And I often wondered sometimes why my units die super fast if I FF a bunch of marines in a small clump without aoe. Hopefully some pro's start to use this more and develop a few more tricks.
On September 01 2011 01:07 Goolpsy wrote: That is 15 drones working to take down a pylon? And then thereafter have to take down 1 or 2 cannons. How is that not alot of mining time? The Math is 3xpylon + 2 cancelled cannons = 362 minerals vs 15/all mining workers for 1 ingame minute.
I do not not the exact numbers, but is it certain that Zerg will be economically ahead after this?
Even if the Z is behind in economy, P will be way behind in tech. To even survive the first lings out he will have to cannon up, allowing Z to drone up and maybe even take a 3rd depending on map.
On September 01 2011 01:07 Goolpsy wrote: That is 15 drones working to take down a pylon? And then thereafter have to take down 1 or 2 cannons. How is that not alot of mining time? The Math is 3xpylon + 2 cancelled cannons = 362 minerals vs 15/all mining workers for 1 ingame minute.
I do not not the exact numbers, but is it certain that Zerg will be economically ahead after this?
Even if the Z is behind in economy, P will be way behind in tech. To even survive the first lings out he will have to cannon up, allowing Z to drone up and maybe even take a 3rd depending on map.
Yes. What i dont think people are realizing is this. Is if you break that contain. Your pretty much free to take 3 bases and drone for about 7-8 minutes.
People need to stop doing math like above though. The op should edit to include the testing that was done on earlier replys. Grabbing 15 or all your workers is dumb. You only need to grab 8, and you can let the cannon get to about 1/4th the way before starting to attack the pylon. So it doesn't even take a 'huge' quick response time, although the trick it self is harder to pull off than average.
But lets say you panick. You ctrl click your probes and do it with them all. You will still be ahead about 1 minute after you return to mining. And you can take 2 more bases. Just remember your evo chamber.
edit: evo chamber comment is if you do take 2 more bases (which you should rather quickly) make sure you got the anti void shit ready to go.
On September 02 2011 23:26 ohampatu wrote: Yea idk if this is meant to be or not. I know that all units work like this when stacked. The problem is only workers can be stacked. Im very happy this trick helps though, even if its not intended.
I once put an FF behind lings attacking my cybercore, to trap them. It grouped all 15 lings on top of eachother. They killed the cybercore faster than if they had a full surround. TT. The engine acts weird when stacked/attacking at the same time.
So OP when the trick works on individual units. The cybercore litterally died in about 2 seconds.
So if this is true, can you use 10+ zealots and a few FFs to turbokill enemy structures? Think of implications for zlot/sentry vs bunkers, or later-game prism drops to snipe z tech buildings (protects the zlots vs lings/banes, too! lol!).
bump
anyone?
No. I answered earlier but musta got loss. After a bit of testing on my part (not much i'll admit). I can only get workers and lings to be able to stack and attack. No other unit will. A good example is MC's sentry abuse against july in gsl. So im pretty sure at least all ranged units aren't affected this way.
Id need more testing on the zealot, if you can force them all together they may be possible to attack if in range, but ive only experienced it with the worker and ling. I should make a video or find my replay and post, cause it may or may not be a bug. I think only workers are intended for this (or should be).
This trick actually does not work on many maps. So far I've found that it does not work on shattered temple and metalopolis because the closest pathing to any mineral patches in your nat is from ramp, hence the drones will instead walk up ramp and stop there instead of stacking by the pylon.
You can, however, still do it on any other mineral patch on other expo. This of course requires map panning and increase the micro time by so much it's no longer worth it.
This is really really cool! Sadly, someone did a 3 pylon block to me on The Shattered Temple.. and I was excited to show this awesome trick to my friends. I had fraps on, and pressed my trusty F9 button to record... and the drones didn't go to the ramp GG
On the maps which work, I love it! Really great trick, really great find.
This trick doesn't seem to work on Nerazim Crypt, when you shift right click the expansion minerals the drones just go up the ramp and run along the cliff of your main.
On September 04 2011 12:43 Essau wrote: This trick doesn't seem to work on Nerazim Crypt, when you shift right click the expansion minerals the drones just go up the ramp and run along the cliff of your main.
you have to click on the further side of the mineral patches to get it ito work like farthest one away or something.
There's a lot of maps this doesn't work on, like on Backwater Gulch. By the time I found some random bases mineral line to make it work, I had no time and couldnt watch but had to use the minimap to figure when to attack. It's funny because I knew he was going to do that (he had ultralisk portrait so I knew a zerg playing protoss would try it), and I even had a drone following him and I saw him prepare for it, and I even had a drone following his scouting probe and it was actually positioned right and I blocked it, but I moved it intentionally so I could do this pro trick.
why is this ramp blocking a problem anyway? can't zerg just poop some creep up the ramp and put 2 spine crawlers? pool is only 50m and 20 seconds more expensive than forge but protoss also needs 3 pylons, right?
maybe zerg should just go pool first instead of hatch first?
^ You can't get creep in time to prevent a wall off. It takes 2 tumors to get creep onto the ramp, if not 3 on some maps, and not only that but it takes a long time for the creep to actually spread. By the time you have even a single tumor reaching down and 2 spines, the other race should have an expansion already up and running.
And pooling first isn't always safer. For example against 2 rax scv all-in, it's actually considered safer to go hatch first (if played right, not going hatch first can actually be an autoloss to a terran who plays smart).
Against Protoss you absolutely need to be a base ahead just to be even, and going pool first does absolutely nothing to stop cannon contains or wall-ins. Just because you go pool first, Protoss can still wall you in before zerglings come out, and 2 zerglings popping the same time 2 cannons finish isn't going to help. Then, Protoss can add cannons.
There's literally no way for Zerg to break out of a cannon contain if Protoss dedicates enough resources (ie 2 more cannons), and there's definitely no way to break a cannon contain without being so far behind that the game is completely unwinnable. No matter what opening you do, if Protoss gets those 3 pylons up blocking your ramp, there is absolutely no way to win the game against a competent Protoss (read: he isn't a moron and lets you build a hatch in his base or get a nydus in). It's completely game killing, there's literally nothing Zerg can do to win the game from there.
Personally I go 14/14, but that's to help with scouting, allows me to autowin against 2 gates or 4 gates without roaches, and possibly get a runby against FFE. It is not at all safer against Protoss who wall me in or cannon rush, if I know that Protoss is going to try to wall me in or cannon rush me or FFE, then I'd actually go hatch first every game. It doesn't matter what map you're on or what opening you did, you have to patrol a drone at the bottom and follow the scouting SCV with a drone.
haha this is such a awesome find^^ But i think it's way more economical to just put 2 drones on patrol,one at the bottom of the ramp and one behind a mineral line if you fear a cannon rush.Or one at the bottom of the ramp and one chasing the probe.
On September 03 2011 15:31 Belial88 wrote: To the person who said you can 'counter' cannon contains with proxy hatch inbase with scouting drone.
You realize any half decent player will always keep track of the scouting worker in their base, and won't let a hatch go unnoticed right? And even then, the best response is just 2 cannons on it when it's halfway done.
Anyways because of cannons behind mineral lines, I won't be hatching first against P still. However it is nice I can do something against wall-ins now, I normally patrol a drone if I haven't scouted P yet (or I do scout and see forge).
you do realize this is Catz's standard response to getting cannon rushed? and even if the hatch dies because of 2 cannons the P spent more money? and you can even go 1 base mutalisks after the proxy hatch to get the win? and the idea of the hatch is not to win, but to get 3 roaches out and 1shot workers with them?
lol until catz get big tourney and lan wins with his proxy hatch, it shall forever be a gimmick strat.
If the hatch dies to 2 cannons the P 'spent' 300 minerals on cannons, he still needs that pylon. I doubt a P is going to let your hatch live for 40s after finishing so you can get the 2 more larva and get roaches. The roaches don't even hatch all together.
Besides, the top pros that streams don't take ladder seriously. They do it for fan enjoyment trying out random strats and streaming revenus. If they did take ladder seriously, they wouldn't stream.
^ if you put the cannons when hatch half way done, you can cancel at last second if Zerg cancels. And even if you are slightly behind, you are miles ahead of a Zerg contained on 1 base that has absolutely no way to break out cost efficiently. Anyone who think proxy hatching is a viable strat is ridiculous, it only works against people who have no idea how to respond, which is 2 bunkers or 2 cannons when hatch is halfway.
Getting walled in as Zerg is an autoloss, and it's fucking ridiculous Blizz still allows it on ladder. What world do you live in where people find it a fun game when that happens? If Zerg doesn't have a hold position worker, Protoss autowins (or they are dumb and don't take the opportunity to wall-off). Terran can do the same thing as well (but it's more telling when they bring 3 workers before your hatch is up).
Can this principle in any way be applied when the protoss does a manner double pylon wall behind your natural mineral line? In my opinion the zerg still is put economically behind if he has to cancel and relocate the hatchery... I almost see no protoss wall the ramp anymore, they mostly wall behind the natural mineral line.
On September 04 2011 10:03 Wrongspeedy wrote: MC in his (video)radio interview uses FF's to group units up tight like that, then he uses Colossus for super AOE. This thread should be called -Unit Stacking 101. And I often wondered sometimes why my units die super fast if I FF a bunch of marines in a small clump without aoe. Hopefully some pro's start to use this more and develop a few more tricks.
yes force fields are super nice to stack units ^.^ its important to know where you have to put the forcefield to press units together or to push them away from danger etc. Not only as toss but also as an opponent of a toss .
On September 01 2011 01:06 asmo.0 wrote: Hmm this looks really awesome, and a "fair" counter to the cannon wall-in that has plagued ladder since release.
Question: Does this work against the 3pylon walloff on taldarim as well?
Yes but you may find with low resolution on certain monitors, you will have to scroll to click the minerals at your natural. But yes it does work.
On September 01 2011 01:06 asmo.0 wrote: Hmm this looks really awesome, and a "fair" counter to the cannon wall-in that has plagued ladder since release.
Question: Does this work against the 3pylon walloff on taldarim as well?
Yes but you may find with low resolution on certain monitors, you will have to scroll to click the minerals at your natural. But yes it does work.
nah, it still works. But might as well not. ANy person willing to invest on this will place a gateway behind it and cancel once cannon gets up and replace pylon.
i tried to do this couple minutes ago on shattered temple at the bottom left hand position and my drones just went into the corner of my base instead of running down the ramp at the pylon wall, not sure if its just this one spot in shattered temple, The map it self, or if they patched drone drilling/pathing if there are buildings in the way.
edit:looks like it doesnt work well on typhon peaks or shattered Temple but does well on other maps.
On September 27 2011 15:50 TBK wrote: i tried to do this couple minutes ago on shattered temple at the bottom left hand position and my drones just went into the corner of my base instead of running down the ramp at the pylon wall, not sure if its just this one spot in shattered temple, The map it self, or if they patched drone drilling/pathing if there are buildings in the way.
edit:looks like it doesnt work well on typhon peaks or shattered Temple but does well on other maps.
Yes, this just happened to me with a bunker rush. It definitely does not work on Temple anymore.
I'm not 100% sure I did it on Temple before patch, but it definitely won't work now. Does anyone remember doing it on Temple pre-patch?
On September 27 2011 15:50 TBK wrote: i tried to do this couple minutes ago on shattered temple at the bottom left hand position and my drones just went into the corner of my base instead of running down the ramp at the pylon wall, not sure if its just this one spot in shattered temple, The map it self, or if they patched drone drilling/pathing if there are buildings in the way.
edit:looks like it doesnt work well on typhon peaks or shattered Temple but does well on other maps.
Yes, this just happened to me with a bunker rush. It definitely does not work on Temple anymore.
I'm not 100% sure I did it on Temple before patch, but it definitely won't work now. Does anyone remember doing it on Temple pre-patch?
Just an update on this drone drill technique.... Its not worked on the last two maps I've tried, after a protoss pylon'ed me in at my ramp. Shattered Temple and Tal Darim'(I think) were the two maps where my drones didn't stack, but instead moved back into my base confused...
Yeah, it seems very unreliable about working now. I lost a game to cannon cheese because I saw he was going to block my ramp and said to myself "hoho, this fool doesn't know about the drone stack drill".
Then I looked like the fool as I ineptly tried to kill the pylon and eventually lost my hatch and consequently the game .
For metalopolis, you need to save camera location on the 3rd so you can quickly switch back and forth between drones and the mineral patch at 3rd. Same goes for Shattered temple.
What isn't clear in the OP but is so in the video is that you should shift click the mineral patch repeatedly before the a click. This bunches up the probes tightly and consistently. With the mouse wheel scroll bind this is really simple to do.
Also, the technique works for any mineral patch on the map. On entombed, clicking the natural or third causes the probes to bug out and not cluster up against the wall, but they will do so if you click the expansion in front of the natural, (the one walled off by rocks). Since you never need to look at your probes while doing this, what prevents this method from being applicable on every map, and if so, is it time for neutral supply depots to be removed?