I'm pretty awful at PvZ. There seems to be some critical concept that I'm missing in this match-up, so I'm always looking for effective ways that others are playing against Zerg. In my search, I stumbled across an opening that White-Ra (and probably many others) do where he quickly gets 6 gates and a warp prism. He takes a 3rd just before 9 minutes (off of a FFE--with a gate+core opening, it would likely be slightly slower, but Z's economy is slightly slowed by gate+core as well) and warps in zealots in Z's bases to keep Z pinned in a defensive position.
White-Ra does seem to take some damage when Z is able to clean up the prism pressure and counter-press, but because White-Ra has the third so early, he can afford to take damage from muta harass or 2-pronged roach attacks whereas a P taking an 11 or 12 minute 3rd seems to need to retain units almost perfectly in order to stay in the game. Beyond setting up an economy that's strong enough to weather a few blows, this style has an additional benefit since trading zealots for drones/queens/buildings allows you to skew your composition toward gas which is always a good thing in PvZ.
I've watched some of RSVP's replays where he grabs a similarly early (or slightly earlier) 3rd while teching quickly to colossi, and he defends his bases with colossi and cannons, but when I tried that style, I mostly just died. With the gateway style, however, I found it easier to set up my third because Z was distracted by the zealot drops, and I found it easier to defend with a larger gateway force rather than relying on colossus positioning and heroic micro.
This style may remind people of Cecil's warp prism style, but it does differ significantly since it gets more (and earlier) gates, slower blink, a faster third, colossi rather than templar tech, and it's more of a harass+macro style whereas Cecil builds to a 12 minute timing attack.
I'd like to ask high level players what their experiences with this sort of strategy have been, whether they find they are able to reliably defend their bases, and what sort of scouting cues they're looking for. Can you take the quick third against 2 base muta? Or against 2 base infestor? If Z takes a fourth, can you take a fourth?
See the replay of Huk vs Idra on Shakuras for the best example of this. You can take a really early 3rd base on gateway tech when you scout that your opponent's fast third, which is always followed up by roaches.
I've seen this on White-Ra's stream many times and am impressed by how the rest of the game tends to go for him if/once he is able to secure an early third base. It's something I've wanted to try as I also have had my issues with PvZ.
Mid masters player here, I think you're higher ranked than me so take this for what it's worth.
I think 3rd timing is so highly dependent on the map that it's hard to have a set 3rd timing for every map. On Shattered temple or antiga the 3rd is incredibly easy to secure for instance, but on maps like metal is pretty hard to defend, but easy for zerg to defend, and shakuras is somewhat in the middle. Also realize that from what I've seen, white-ra is a highly aggressive expander relative to other pros that I've seen.
In terms of cues, if they went 2-base roach into late 3rd and it is on a map where it is easy to defend your 3rd, you can expand (don't commit too much to harass because it probably won't do that much damage vs roaches). If it is 2-base roach into late 3rd on a map that is hard to expand, you CAN expand but IMO it is risky, banking on the harass diversion to get your 3rd up safely. IMO it is better to commit more to the harass since zerg will have a harder time to defend their own 3rd on unfavorable maps.
Vs any 2 ling-only based defense (i.e. mutaling or infestorling), warp prism 7-gate 9min push should outright just win you the game so you don't really need to expand in my experiences. If they went super early 3rd vs your gateway expand you should be able to punish his 3rd by just pushing out when +1 finishes.
I don't have any advice on 4th timing. IMO at that point in the game there is just too many variables involved to give any general advice.
HuK did this but he got 6 gates on taldarim and just never attacked. He kind of has the gateways as like a fall back, and is definitely not producing out of all of them. Then he techs to everything on three bases. It didn't work out for him.
I'm currently struggling in PvZ also. Most of my wins come off of gimmicky 2 base play after FFE. The style you describe in the first post seems to be a great solid way to get a 3rd base and be even with the Zerg. My only concern is that if the Zerg manages to defend vs the warp prism/zealot harassment they will easily dominate the medium sized low tech Protoss army before colossi come out.
This is how I feel every PvZ game goes these days: Protoss needs to do damage to Zerg economy with some kind of gimmicky 2 base push. It all comes down to whether the Zerg scouts and prepares for the push in the right way.
HOWEVER, maybe the style you proposed is less gimmicky because of the faster 3rd. I don't know.
I'm master EU (1350ish points last season) btw.
On October 29 2011 02:52 iamke55 wrote: See the replay of Huk vs Idra on Shakuras for the best example of this. You can take a really early 3rd base on gateway tech when you scout that your opponent's fast third, which is always followed up by roaches.
What game do you mean? Can you provide a link to the replay if you got it? Thanks.
The first game I really noticed this and prompted me to begin doing it myself was Huk vs July on Antiga, in the last MLG (orlando?). The build is essentially FFE into 6-gate, with lots of sentries early from gateways. But as soon as warpgate finishes, instead of all-inning, he warps in sentries and makes a nexus.
I think it's useful to equate it to an old-fashioned 3-gate expand, except you're making a third instead of a second base. Zerg is busy droning up a 3rd base and is low on tech (of course this is assuming he's macroing, not 2-basing), so you can take a 3rd base. If he wants to stop it, he has to stop droning at ~50 and make lots of roaches/lings. You can hold off this pressure with good forcefields and maybe cannons, just like with 3-gate expand. Yes, Zerg has a much higher economy to pump into army at this timing, but so does Protoss, with 6 gates of production rather than 3. So this allows Protoss to basically keep even with Zerg's economy. Zerg can't really take a fast 4th because having 4 simultaneous bases is kind of worthless except for extra gas income.
Huk's followup to this is to quickly make a robo and twilight council at the same time, then go for colossus and blink very fast. Again, to go back and compare to the 3-gate expand, with that build, the 3rd base timing is about when colossus gets out. So in this fast 3rd build, after we begin colossus production we can actually look to take our FOURTH base, which is close to when the main mineral patches begin drying out. It's beautiful timing. I like to throw down a second robo and possibly dark shrine at this time as well, because we'll have 4 bases of gas income.
Typically this entire time, protoss has to defend Zerg trying desperately to kill the 3rd base, or drop, or switch to mutas, or whatever. Protoss can actually get away with not pressuring very much, since his economy is the thing pressuring Zerg, not his army. He just defends until he has 3-4 colossus, at which point he's getting close to maxed and he can begin constant aggression. This is almost EXACTLY how old-style PvZ used to go after a 3-gate expand (iNcontrol style), except we're starting a base ahead (for both P and Z). Which imo favors Protoss.
On October 29 2011 02:52 iamke55 wrote: See the replay of Huk vs Idra on Shakuras for the best example of this. You can take a really early 3rd base on gateway tech when you scout that your opponent's fast third, which is always followed up by roaches.
This, or you can grab a 2nd warp prism (as taking a 3rd is a typical zerg response to a FFE or 1 gate expand from toss) and do a six gate / drop pressure. There's usually too much real estate on the map for the zerg to defend all three locations properly as the harass comes before proper creep spread.
Cecil did an awesome write up on this type of play. As long as you keep your warp prisms alive and save as many units as you can, you can keep zerg holed up for a while, and sometimes even snipe an expansion.
I've stopped doing fast colossus > fast 3rd, and now just do gateway/immortal fast 3rd. The reason why I did the fast colossus in the past is because every zerg went infestors and colossus was good against infestors. The metagame has changed a bunch since the patch so yes the fast colossus is falling out of favor. I still like the super fast robo though (I pretty much spend my first gas on warpgate tech and then robo), and you'll have fast obs and fast warp prism too.
On October 29 2011 02:52 iamke55 wrote: See the replay of Huk vs Idra on Shakuras for the best example of this. You can take a really early 3rd base on gateway tech when you scout that your opponent's fast third, which is always followed up by roaches.
I'm pretty sure that this will get standard sooner or later. Zerg going fast third + speedling and roach is pretty strong against early gateway aggression. Everything else can just be countered by powering through with economy and choosing the right tech. So the only reasonable openings against a zerg that opens as economic as this are either a hard tech play, that is rather a coinflip or getting an extremly fast third yourself and relying on Gateway(+canons) being a pretty strong defense vs low tech zerg.
I personally love this mass gateway/upgrade/warpprism play style while getting a quick third. It all depends on how effective your zealot harrass is. I've experimented with getting charge before blink with some decent results as the harrass gets exponentially stronger with the completion of charge. Once the third is saturated, you'll have so much gas that you can quickly transition into archon or colossus or even a mixture of both resulting in the ultimate deathball. Again, its really dependent on how much you can disrupt the zergs macro and contain him psychologically since if you don't accomplish both to a moderate extent, the zerg can hit when your third is going up or just complete and you dont have jackshit to defend. A really great map to use this play style effectively and simply is taldarim where you can just park your warpprism in between his third and main and have a few proxy pylons to hit from all sides with little squadrons of zealots and even dts in the mix if you can afford. It will be the most annoying game the zerg has ever played. If you scout two base muta however, i would definitely recommend not getting that quick third, cut down on the zealot harrass while maybe getting cannons and switching to dt/blink (dts so you can still harrass or just scare him and more importantly archons. I find hts too gas heavy for this strat) You can still use this style vs 2 base infestor since they arent as efficient as mutas in stopping harrassment and you can gear up for a frontal attack much more easily than defending against a good muta harrasser. As for a 4th base by zerg, you will have even more targets to attack and should focus on running him around the map even more over trying to match his number of bases. Eventually you will get a gas heavy deathball fairly quickly due to the quick third and its lights out for zerg.
On October 29 2011 04:53 Anihc wrote: I've stopped doing fast colossus > fast 3rd, and now just do gateway/immortal fast 3rd. The reason why I did the fast colossus in the past is because every zerg went infestors and colossus was good against infestors. The metagame has changed a bunch since the patch so yes the fast colossus is falling out of favor. I still like the super fast robo though (I pretty much spend my first gas on warpgate tech and then robo), and you'll have fast obs and fast warp prism too.
What are your thoughts on the scouting timing with the observer? Do you feel like you need to have a full scout before you take your third? What are you looking for?
How many gates do you get before taking your third?
Do you get an obs, a prism and an immortal before taking your third?
How do you react if Z delays his third for a lair tech (muta, infestor, roach timing)?
IIRC Day9 did a daily on this a while back? It was White-Ra vs Catz on TA and White-Ra clearly went for a very fast and early 3rd (around the 9minute mark, I think). He was cross positions though on TA and Catz went for a delayed/low gas expansion which gave White-Ra an opening for a fast 3rd.
I definitely think gateway units + immortal + high temps (with storm) is a very underrated mixture vs zerg. I cant think of anything that zerg can do in the mid game to beat a composition like that.
I find taking a 3rd can put a target on your back though since zergs seem to freak out when they see one and just throw units at it till it dies. When this happens i find only gateway support isn't enough to hold it. Also i dont like it on maps where the 3rd is inconvenient, taldarim is good as well as metalopolis but i feel you are spread to thin on maps like shakuras, nerazim. Abyssal and antiga are pretty tied since you cant wander back and forth between the nat and 3rd as easy but there are half decent chokes nearby to fight at.
What I've been doing is going for 2immortals first, and being aggressive with stalker sentry backing it up. Vs late lair roachling it's pretty much an invincible composition. I get the third around 10-10:30 and transitioning into colossi in the mean time. I feel like this is better because you get an obs and a smoother transition into colossi play. I really love going for blink/colossi/sentry and being very active with them, trying to hit him in his bl transition and getting fast expoes and a bunch of cannons with the spare minerals. In pvz it's really important to get the expoes relatively fast, and to respond accordingly with ht and/or airtech once you have established good econ.
On October 29 2011 05:56 Arcanefrost wrote: What I've been doing is going for 2immortals first, and being aggressive with stalker sentry backing it up. Vs late lair roachling it's pretty much an invincible composition. I get the third around 10-10:30 and transitioning into colossi in the mean time. I feel like this is better because you get an obs and a smoother transition into colossi play. I really love going for blink/colossi/sentry and being very active with them, trying to hit him in his bl transition and getting fast expoes and a bunch of cannons with the spare minerals. In pvz it's really important to get the expoes relatively fast, and to respond accordingly with ht and/or airtech once you have established good econ.
But do you feel like it is enough to expand around 10-10:30? Because you will be on ~50probes 2base at that time vs a zerg that should have ~60drones on 3base. Zerg can basically just throw stuff at you from that moment on. (excluding the possibility that you are playing on Tal'darim, on which zerg can't go 3base easily, protoss can turtle 3base forever and zerg can't hardly allin due to the vast distances)
EPT
