Hello forum, I am a protoss silver player. I played a Zerg player, he rushed me with a 7 pool but I definitely struggled in countering it. What I think I did wrong: My macro in general was not great ( but his was a whole lot worse anyways) I found it difficult to find an expansion, mainly because I'm not sure on how to distribute my units to defend all my bases. I must have made the wrong decisions on how to counter the few zerglings that rushed me
I need help in: General advice on what to do in a crisis situation i.e. what to build, produce, chrono, attack in a cheese. What I particularly did wrong in this situation
7 pools are difficult to hold off; especially for toss and because of how early the pool is, it's crippling for the zerg opponent.
The main thing with zerglings is that to be effective, they need to get into your base (with a few minor exceptions) so you simply need to form a complete wall as soon as you scout the pool.
be sure you built your first gate at your ramp so it's partially walled off. When you scout, if you feel that the pool is suspiciously early or you see large numbers of zerglings, immediately throw down a forge and another pylon to wall yourself off completely. As soon as your forge finishes, build a cannon that defends the top of your ramp.
from this point the zerglings cannot really do anything damaging, so continue your build and when your ready with an army (don't forget the sentries ), kill your forge, move out, and expand. Your opponent should be playing at a disadvantage (lack of drones) while you are only a few hundred minerals behind. Play as you would normally from there and good luck
(I'm watching your game now, I'll edit my post after I finish analyzing it, with any other pointers on your play)
scout early pool. Cut probes. Build wall. Make zealots or canons (depending what you wall with ). Clean up. And then it should be relatively easy due to econ lead.
If I scout an early pool, I generally finish my wall with a chronoboosted zealot as I ALLWAYS wall of against zerg with Gate/Core and a zealot. Something to back up with if they take down the zealot is a pylon behind it making sure they can't get through, when the zealot just finishes make a stalker/sentry to snipe of lings while you're behind your full wall made by that pylon.
Stop probe production at 12~14 probes, make a second gate at your wallin, block entrance with another pylon, chrono out a zealot and try to fend off aggression with some probes (not too much) and keep making zealots. If he keeps making lings, you just tech up and wallin normally or if he goes supermacro mode behind it (these are still difficult) you HAVE to 2gate him just to let him make units, once you did some damage (you always can) you practicly win the game. I often see people allin (4gate, dt's etc.) but that stuff is really risky, if he holds that 1 attack he wins the game and believe me it's not that difficult to hold 4gate after a 8pool.
Hi, Ok. I watched your replay. There were a few things you could have done to beat it.
First you scouted after you built your first pylon. That was good, you should always pylon-scout against zerg. I think the first mistake was that you built your gateway on 13 supply although you had 150 minerals at 12. so build your gateway at 12 send your probe out a bit earlier to build it exactly when you get 150 minerals. Then you scouted the 7 pool when his zerglings hatched. In response you built a second pylon near your nexus not powering your gateway...not a good idea. when you saw his zerglings you had another 150 minerals in your bank. just build a second gateway at your entrance to wall it off completly. also your second pylon should power both of your gatways in case he kills your first pylon.
idealy you should wall off with a second gateway completely. chronoboost out two zealots. get a cyber core and transition into a 4 gate. because his economy is bad he shouldnt be able to hold it off - you win. hope that helps.
On September 18 2011 03:32 KirbyGod wrote: 7 pools are difficult to hold off; especially for toss and because of how early the pool is, it's crippling for the zerg opponent.
The main thing with zerglings is that to be effective, they need to get into your base (with a few minor exceptions) so you simply need to form a complete wall as soon as you scout the pool.
be sure you built your first gate at your ramp so it's partially walled off. When you scout, if you feel that the pool is suspiciously early or you see large numbers of zerglings, immediately throw down a forge and another pylon to wall yourself off completely. As soon as your forge finishes, build a cannon that defends the top of your ramp.
from this point the zerglings cannot really do anything damaging, so continue your build and when your ready with an army (don't forget the sentries ), kill your forge, move out, and expand. Your opponent should be playing at a disadvantage (lack of drones) while you are only a few hundred minerals behind. Play as you would normally from there and good luck
(I'm watching your game now, I'll edit my post after I finish analyzing it, with any other pointers on your play)
tt nevermind. good advice, but don't kill the forge if you are going for an expansion. kill pylon instead. ^_^
Your problem was not paying attention to your scout. You poke up into his base, see 4 eggs in production then back off. 4 eggs is very unusual as it implies he saved up 3 larvae and the money to get so many units at a time. At the very least you should investigate further or wait to see what comes out of those eggs.
If you poked just a bit further, you would have seen his low drone count (indicates he has a pool) or his spawning pool. This would've signalled you to prepare for the ling rush.
So you pull back without really scouting him properly, but it turns out, your opponent runs his lings alongside your scouting probe for 5-10 seconds. If you had looked at your minimap, or looked at your scout you would have seen the rush coming. Instead you arrive at his natural, see no expansion, then go back into his main, where you finally see the spawning pool, and then your start responding. At that point the lings are running into your base.
If you had scouted properly, you could have cut probes, avoided putting probes on gas for a bit so you could get your wall done asap, and then chrono a zealot out.
EPT
), kill your forge, move out, and expand. Your opponent should be playing at a disadvantage (lack of drones) while you are only a few hundred minerals behind. Play as you would normally from there and good luck 
