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@michaelhasanalias: Great post regarding your games.
Based on your post and the screen shots only, I would just make two observations (and I note upfront that these don't change my overall opinion, based on my own testing, that walling off against 6pool is generally unreliable - I think we are in agreement on this):
First, none of the players in the screenshots have walled off correctly (ie forge at the furthest end of the ramp, then gateway/gateway completing the wall. Walling off in this way is important because (1) there is no weak pylon or cannon to attack - the weakest link is the forge - and (2) the correct positioning of the forge allows you to add 1 gateway and 1 pylon to maintain the seal when the forge dies. Provided you only make one cannon (which is all you need), you have just enough minerals to put down a pylon and gateway just before the forge dies. I agree the forge will die before the cannon completes in many cases.
Second, you have said that in each of the games your opponent built a forge on 12. It may seem counter-intuitive, but based on my tests you are actually better off sending your 13th probe to make the forge (ie build on 14) than you are sending your 11th (build on 12). By sending your 11th, you actually don't have enough money in time to make gateway cannon gateway - your cannon is actually delayed by a few critical seconds. The reason for this seems to be that by going 12 forge (and stopping probes), you have 10 probes mining, 1 scouting, and 1 building a forge. By going 14 forge, you have 12 probes mining. Now whilst you save 100 minerals by stopping probes on 12, it actually appears that the two additional probes have more than compensated for their 100 mineral cost by the time your forge completes.
Seeing as you have an interest in early pool timings, I would very much like to test some of these timings with you. I generally hang out in [TA] / op ngen on SEA (where I see you sometimes play), so I'd love to test the timings with you some time. Personally, I'm more interested in 8, 9 and 10 pool timings, as I see these as far more dangerous builds than 6 pool.
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Regarding scouting on FFE maps, i usually send a 9 scout and then send my probe that built the forge to scout the final position that hasnt beeen scouted. Both my probes arrive at the 2nd and 3rd spawns at around the same time and i have enough time to either finish my wall off (on taldarim and shakuras, nerazim crypt, abyssal caverns) or put a pylon and canon in my mineral line (on antigua shipyard).
Good replays for defending 6/7 pool are the Huk vs Moon game on taldarim at DreamHack, and Sage vs Check Game 2 on antigua in this months GSL code A. The former game has Huk finishing his wall off and the latter has Sage abandoning his forge and cannoning his mineral line. In both games they hold off the rush with ease. Huk even said in an interview after DreamHack that he felt relieved when he saw the 6 pool lol.
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Well, they could always make the spawning pool cost 250 or 300 to discourage early pools... especially since there is no equivalent in either P or T because we have to build a pylon/sdepot first. 6pool used to be fine until people realized they could just drone like crazy off of it. It's getting a little ridiculous now.
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i refuse to believe 6 pool is op..
its like what, 15 workers to 6?
toss has no tech!
zerg has nothing...
he'll catchup eventually.. but he'll always be worse off than if he hadn't 6 pooled
it would have to be something like playing while 10%~ behind
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On October 05 2011 15:04 Go1den wrote:
Well, they could always make the spawning pool cost 250 or 300 to discourage early pools... especially since there is no equivalent in either P or T because we have to build a pylon/sdepot first. 6pool used to be fine until people realized they could just drone like crazy off of it. It's getting a little ridiculous now.
Me as a Terran likes that idea. 2 rax them zergies :D .
(just stating why it shouldnt)
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On October 05 2011 13:38 ZealotMaster wrote:
@michaelhasanalias: Great post regarding your games.
Based on your post and the screen shots only, I would just make two observations (and I note upfront that these don't change my overall opinion, based on my own testing, that walling off against 6pool is generally unreliable - I think we are in agreement on this):
First, none of the players in the screenshots have walled off correctly (ie forge at the furthest end of the ramp, then gateway/gateway completing the wall. Walling off in this way is important because (1) there is no weak pylon or cannon to attack - the weakest link is the forge - and (2) the correct positioning of the forge allows you to add 1 gateway and 1 pylon to maintain the seal when the forge dies. Provided you only make one cannon (which is all you need), you have just enough minerals to put down a pylon and gateway just before the forge dies. I agree the forge will die before the cannon completes in many cases.
Second, you have said that in each of the games your opponent built a forge on 12. It may seem counter-intuitive, but based on my tests you are actually better off sending your 13th probe to make the forge (ie build on 14) than you are sending your 11th (build on 12). By sending your 11th, you actually don't have enough money in time to make gateway cannon gateway - your cannon is actually delayed by a few critical seconds. The reason for this seems to be that by going 12 forge (and stopping probes), you have 10 probes mining, 1 scouting, and 1 building a forge. By going 14 forge, you have 12 probes mining. Now whilst you save 100 minerals by stopping probes on 12, it actually appears that the two additional probes have more than compensated for their 100 mineral cost by the time your forge completes.
Seeing as you have an interest in early pool timings, I would very much like to test some of these timings with you. I generally hang out in [TA] / op ngen on SEA (where I see you sometimes play), so I'd love to test the timings with you some time. Personally, I'm more interested in 8, 9 and 10 pool timings, as I see these as far more dangerous builds than 6 pool.
yeah one of the things i was wondering (since I don't play protoss either, and frankly wonder why I'm trying to help P survive early game against my main race), is whether 12 was indeed better. It seems you'd start the cannon as soon as the forge finishes, but this is usually impossible anyway with scouting timings. I think 14 forge might allow more money to put up a better wall. I don't know if there's anything you can really do to survive a 6 pool if you invest heavily in completing a wall, but maybe someone has a good way.
to be perfectly honest though, I don't really want to spend any more time arguing or testing or optimizing protoss defense in these 6 pool threads though because I wasted my entire morning (which should have been spent practicing) to do those tests and make that post, and I'd rather just practice more standard play during my practice hours. I'll definitely message you next time I'm on SEA though and we can play a few.
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On October 05 2011 15:11 Let it Raine wrote:
i refuse to believe 6 pool is op..
its like what, 15 workers to 6?
toss has no tech!
zerg has nothing...
he'll catchup eventually.. but he'll always be worse off than if he hadn't 6 pooled
it would have to be something like playing while 10%~ behind
Refuse all you want, but those 6 lings will kill every single one of your 15 workers. I have lost to like 5 pools in a row at the time of writing. They where all on 4 player maps where I scouted him last (even when I use two workers. His units are already on the way when before I can get the forge down. He then focuses the forge, kills every one of my workers, and both canons before they are even close to finishing.
I'm starting to call this OP as well. You can't possibly expect us to go 10 forge every single game in case the zerg decides to allin.
Btw, these are 6 pools when I'm not fast expanding, but I do usually 13 gate. At one time I put down the gate at 11, scouted him second on metal, and still didn't hold..
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You guys have to learn to stutter step your zealots if you can't hold 6 pool with gate first. 1 zealot kills 5 slow lings by itself if you stutter it.
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It's not overpowered, a Nexus first or FFE is incredibly risky and if it is unpunished the zerg player falls significantly far behind unless they are equally greedy - which most FFE players intentionally all-in after to punish. This is why so many people all-in on FFE maps against Protoss in ZvP, it's very hard otherwise.
There are quite a few other all-ins that are more reactional than a 6 pool and can completely crush a FFE, as July shows time after time.
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On October 10 2011 11:09 Xequecal wrote:
You guys have to learn to stutter step your zealots if you can't hold 6 pool with gate first. 1 zealot kills 5 slow lings by itself if you stutter it.
Tried the Morrow's micro race? Theres a level there with 1 zealot vs 4 full hp lings and one 50%hp ling. They are on attack move, and still it usually takes 10+ tries before I get it. Now imagine if these zerglings surrounds instead of blindly following.
No, a zealot will not kill 5 fullhp zerglings. Micro or not.
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On October 10 2011 10:57 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2011 15:11 Let it Raine wrote:
i refuse to believe 6 pool is op..
its like what, 15 workers to 6?
toss has no tech!
zerg has nothing...
he'll catchup eventually.. but he'll always be worse off than if he hadn't 6 pooled
it would have to be something like playing while 10%~ behind
Refuse all you want, but those 6 lings will kill every single one of your 15 workers. I have lost to like 5 pools in a row at the time of writing. They where all on 4 player maps where I scouted him last (even when I use two workers. His units are already on the way when before I can get the forge down. He then focuses the forge, kills every one of my workers, and both canons before they are even close to finishing. I'm starting to call this OP as well. You can't possibly expect us to go 10 forge every single game in case the zerg decides to allin. Btw, these are 6 pools when I'm not fast expanding, but I do usually 13 gate. At one time I put down the gate at 11, scouted him second on metal, and still didn't hold..
You shouldn't be losing to 6pool, it's something you're doing wrong if you are and not 6p being overpowered
(it's not)
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its not overpowered just quite difficult to defend
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On October 10 2011 11:33 HenryZ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2011 10:57 Excludos wrote:On October 05 2011 15:11 Let it Raine wrote:
i refuse to believe 6 pool is op..
its like what, 15 workers to 6?
toss has no tech!
zerg has nothing...
he'll catchup eventually.. but he'll always be worse off than if he hadn't 6 pooled
it would have to be something like playing while 10%~ behind
Refuse all you want, but those 6 lings will kill every single one of your 15 workers. I have lost to like 5 pools in a row at the time of writing. They where all on 4 player maps where I scouted him last (even when I use two workers. His units are already on the way when before I can get the forge down. He then focuses the forge, kills every one of my workers, and both canons before they are even close to finishing. I'm starting to call this OP as well. You can't possibly expect us to go 10 forge every single game in case the zerg decides to allin. Btw, these are 6 pools when I'm not fast expanding, but I do usually 13 gate. At one time I put down the gate at 11, scouted him second on metal, and still didn't hold.. You shouldn't be losing to 6pool, it's something you're doing wrong if you are and not 6p being overpowered (it's not)
You'd think so. But on these 4 player maps like Taldarim, if you scout him last, even with double scout, you wont see it before he's already on his way with the lings. If you place down a forge then, his units will have taken down the forge and all your probes before the canon is even halfway finished.
If you spot his scouting probe, then you can blindly put down a forge too, which is will be doing from now on. The problem comes when the zerg 9 scouts (for some very odd reason, a couple of zergs do this), and you put down a forge thinking it could be a rush, you'll end up incredibly far behind.
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When playing vs zerg I normally FFE. I always build second pylon by main nexus. When seeing an early pool I put down cannon in my mineral line and a second pylon if I think I'll lose the first one at my main. I will lose the forge and pylon on the low ground, but am still way ahead in the game. Don't have problems with early pools now.
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if 6 pool is overpowered due to not scouting it then i guess proxy rax and proxy gates are as well.
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On October 10 2011 10:57 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2011 15:11 Let it Raine wrote:
i refuse to believe 6 pool is op..
its like what, 15 workers to 6?
toss has no tech!
zerg has nothing...
he'll catchup eventually.. but he'll always be worse off than if he hadn't 6 pooled
it would have to be something like playing while 10%~ behind
Refuse all you want, but those 6 lings will kill every single one of your 15 workers. I have lost to like 5 pools in a row at the time of writing. They where all on 4 player maps where I scouted him last (even when I use two workers. His units are already on the way when before I can get the forge down. He then focuses the forge, kills every one of my workers, and both canons before they are even close to finishing. I'm starting to call this OP as well. You can't possibly expect us to go 10 forge every single game in case the zerg decides to allin. Btw, these are 6 pools when I'm not fast expanding, but I do usually 13 gate. At one time I put down the gate at 11, scouted him second on metal, and still didn't hold..
If you are losing all of your workers to 6 zerglings then you sir, are doing something wrong.
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I sometimes feel SC2 players are just too damn sensitive when it comes to super early aggression.
if it fails without doing enough damage 6 Pool will leave the Zerg in the stone age. Many P players have defended 6 pool.
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On October 10 2011 13:14 birdkicker wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2011 10:57 Excludos wrote:On October 05 2011 15:11 Let it Raine wrote:
i refuse to believe 6 pool is op..
its like what, 15 workers to 6?
toss has no tech!
zerg has nothing...
he'll catchup eventually.. but he'll always be worse off than if he hadn't 6 pooled
it would have to be something like playing while 10%~ behind
Refuse all you want, but those 6 lings will kill every single one of your 15 workers. I have lost to like 5 pools in a row at the time of writing. They where all on 4 player maps where I scouted him last (even when I use two workers. His units are already on the way when before I can get the forge down. He then focuses the forge, kills every one of my workers, and both canons before they are even close to finishing. I'm starting to call this OP as well. You can't possibly expect us to go 10 forge every single game in case the zerg decides to allin. Btw, these are 6 pools when I'm not fast expanding, but I do usually 13 gate. At one time I put down the gate at 11, scouted him second on metal, and still didn't hold.. If you are losing all of your workers to 6 zerglings then you sir, are doing something wrong.
Dunno how you'd think 13-15 probes vs 8 zerglings is going to work out.. Not to mention you'll be fighting in a choke, as you're trying to keep the lings out, or they'll just kite forever. And 8 lings in a choke can pretty much kill of infinite workers..
Usually I can end up with somewhere around 4-5 workers left. However, by then the zerg player will be at 12+. You'll be too far behind to ever catch up.
edit: And yes, a proper 6pool is with 8 zerglings with the 2 last ones coming about 7-8 ingame seconds later.
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On September 28 2011 16:13 kazie wrote:
dam. this means if u make ur wall and cannon faster you'll win 80% of ur games without even trying! lucky you
Best way to sum up cheese, if you purposefully play extra safe then you'll get a surprising number of freewins on ladder. I find that if I open 1 rax CC into 4 rax I end up either holding stupid 1 base all-ins from protoss super easily, or just killing them if they do a greedy tech build (like 3 gate warp prism bs or twilight rush).
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Well, i have started playing again SC2 and I have the same problem as the OP. Litterally 9 out of 10 zergs goes for a 6 pool. Even if they only kill 1 probe, they will expand since i can't put preassure, and they will be ahead because I haven't been mining for ages.
I mean, i can understant going 9 out of 10 times for a 6 pool if you are playing for money and you feel u really cant win otherwise. But when you play ladder? It's the most pathetic thing i have ever seen in this game.
And the people that says: "just build your wall earlier". My probes don't scout at the speed of light...
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EPT
