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Trying to make this shorter and more concise than usual.
Intro
+ Show Spoiler +This play is adapted from watching HerO's and Killer's stream. Killer does a similar opening but tends to use it as a stargate opener, with his first 150 gas going straight to stargate upon the completion of the core. I've seen HerO use a similar style, but his FFE tends to transition into a 4gate +1 zealot push into the third base which has a massive variety of transitions that gives the protoss a significant amount of options heading into the midgame, something they feel they have not had before. This guide will explore only the latter style.
When players hear or see protoss players have success with warp prisms, they often just try to force a warp prism into their build instead of using a new build that allows us of the full potential of the WP. I see this as a build that does exactly that- you get a robo early up enough while being able to pressure early on and still be able to afford sentries and then even DTs to continue the pressure with drop play.
Builds
+ Show Spoiler +The exact FFE build you will use in a particular game will vary dependent on the map. Here are several different build orders for the various maps (depending upon natural expansion) With +2 Blink Transition+ Show Spoiler +been working on some transitions and i have a nice one to add-- 9 py (3 cb on nexus) 14 forge (@100% start +1 weapons) 17 nex 17 gate 17 pylon 17 cannon 18 probe; cb nexus once 19 gas 20 2nd gas 21 core **3 probes on 1st gas, 2 on the 2nd gas; alternatively, 3 on both and pull one from each when +1 starts** maintain probes on both nexuses, but don't CB them ~23 zealot (1 CB) ~28 2nd zealot and WG (1 CB zeal; 3 CB WG) ~33 pylon ~34 stalker ~40 3 gates from here, add an in base pylon then your proxy pylon. the 2z1s will help you secure a proxy pylon if you don't have a probe hidden already. next, make sure 3 probes on each of your main gases. now add a 3rd gas and a twilight council ~48 1st zealot warpin [4] **add 4th gas in between 1st and 2nd cycle** ~60 2nd zealot warpin[4] (probe production is maintained through these cycles!! I recommend cb'ing the gates in between rounds. you should have 3-4 available. if you take the 3rd down, save what zealots you can. you can micro vs lings/slow roaches to some extent. get some more bang for your buck out of those guys. if he holds it with roaches, that's not too bad because he must have delayed his lair more than he would have liked to get roches out. if he held it with lings, O_O when your WGs come up again get a round of sentries. Your TC will be finishing around now. Use your banked gas to start blink and +2. add 2-3 additional gates. i like to get a robo as well for an obs in case they have blink when you move out. You'll want to CB +2 heavily. It's not entirely necessary to cb blink (+2 is 190s vs the 150s of blink) and you'll want to bank some cb for the push. **Cut probes at about 50-52. this means: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ? on each mineral line, 12 on gas total (+1 for mr. proxy probe) blink and +2 will finish between 11:00 and 11:30. you'll have about 16 stalkers, 4-5 sentries and whatever zealots you managed to salvage from your +1 4g push, and an obs if you opted for one. now go kill! i'll add a skeleton http://drop.sc/158976
9 Pylon (scout)
14 Froge
17 Nexus
17 Gateway
17 Cannon
19-20 gases 1 and 2
You'll be able to afford your core at about 21-22 supply. Make sure you get this down as soon as possible.
Add a zealot to hold off the ling run-by if your wall isn't complete or the distance between your choke and the ramp is small.
Begin +1 weapons with your first 100 gas
CB WG research 3-4 times
At about 35 food, your core will be done and you will be able to afford (in terms of time and money) two sentries before WG research is done if you manage CB energy efficiently.
Shortly after, your minerals will begin to accrue. Don't CB your probes too much or you won't be able to afford appropriately timed gateways nor will you be able to afford necessry chronoboost on WG research. At about 40 supply, you will be able to afford 3 gateways. Make sure they go down around the same time for convenience when you are transforming them.
At this point, you should have 1-2 probes hidden some where on his side of the map, or if not at least some where close to the center, unless the zerg scouted flawlessly. You can afford as many proxy pylons as you need to ensure a warp-in, as the rest of your spending will be very gas-intensive, excluding the actual zealots.
Upon the completion of WG research, warp-in as close to the zerg's third as possible (if you scout one with a probe, gun for that location. If you scout no third, add a cannon or 2 and try to probe-scout for a roach or baneling all in and warp in sentries at home instead of zealots afar. For now, we will assume the zerg has a third.
Once you begin the three additional gates, you can add your 2 additional gases and your robo. You will still be able to afford your first zealot warpin for 400 mins and will get a leg up on your tech. Soon thereafter, go ahead and get a twlight council and 1-2 additional gateways. You should make sure you are able to warp-in at least 3 more zealots when your WG cool down is finished to continue rallying to the 3rd base of the zerg.
9 Pylon (scout)
17 Nexus
17 forge
17 gateway
17 pylon
18 cannon
18/19 both gases
Use CB prudently; it's easy to run dry on minerals when CB'ing probes while trying to get your gases and core up on time.
If a 7pool is en route, finish your wall and block with probes until your cannon finishes if possible. If it is not possible to wall off in time, start a pylon in your main and warp a cannon into your mineral line. Do not build any additional structures at the natural. We will assume for now that no 7pool is coming.
Mid Game Core
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/core.png) Grind out the above builds until you reach the point where you have warped in 8 zealots, a robotics and a twilight council until you are comfortable with this style. You are shooting for a flexible mid game. At this point, you have enough probes to cut soon and start preparing for a 2 base timing, depending on what it is; you can even cut the 3rd and 4th gas if you are going for an earlier timing, though I recommend using at least 3. You should have about 40 probes at this point. You have 4 gateways a robotics and a twilight, meanwhile the zerg is forced to make units at this awkward timing. If he is not opening roaches, or gets his roach tech too late, he will only have speedlings, queens, and spine crawlers to defend, so your zealots will be very cost effective as long as you keep them in large enough numbers. So while he is not droning freely, you can easily: - add sentries, as you will accumulate a sizable gas surplus with 4 gases while makeing zealots. You can use these defensively or aggressively in conjunction with a warp prism - add more gateways (bring yourself up to 5 or 6 unless your preparing for a GW all-in, in which 7-8 would be more appropriate) - begin immortal production if you are afraid of roaches - begin blink research if you are afraid of mutas - begin a dark shrine - begin a warp prism - begin a templar archives for archons or storm/feedback - begin plans to take a 3rd You can do any number of these, but if they are in fact opening roaches, it will be quite difficult to take a 3rd until you have enough sentries, immortals and stalkers to hold off a roach spam. Outside of that, you are extremely free to pick your tech route and expansion timing as long as you are scouting for muta or hydra switches.
Common Zerg openers/reactions
+ Show Spoiler +3 Base roach+ Show Spoiler +This is considered the standard of the match-up I'd say. The 3rd base will either begin at a very early time once they see you have FFE'd, or at a later, safer time once they have established more saturation. Your success against this style will come from your ability to sneak probes and pylons around the map and from the timing of your opponent's roach warren timing.
Your proxy pylon does not need to be extremely close to the third, but it should be on their side of the map, beyond the towers, at least. Your main goal is to take down the hatchery, so when faced with slow roaches as you are rallying zealots, you should try to focus down the hatchery and ignore the roaches if need be.
If you manage to take down the hatchery, you are in a very good position, but should be wary of taking a greedy 3rd at the risk of roach spam. If your attack falls flat, you can transition into DT drops very easily and very quickly and come back into the game if you can manage to snipe hatcheries/important tech buildings with DT/zealot warp-ins off of six gateways. Taking a 3rd from here will be difficult if you cannot do damage with this, though. This style is becoming more common in ZvP as I'm sure you know. However, this push will come before mutas are out and the zerg will not have anything to defend outside of lings queens and spine crawlers. You are all but guaranteed a hatchery kill at the 3rd unless they hold it off with pure lings, in which case they will have very few drones afterwards. If they do not take their 3rd, you can pressure the natural because even though he hasn't extended to a 3rd, he still only has lings/queens/crawlers to defend. You really won't be able to differentiate between a muta build or an infestor build at this point, but you can gain that information with an observer or a warp prism while preparing yourself for mutas by warping in additional stalkers at home and researching blink. This will play out much like muta play will at the time of the push, but you can harass more freely with WP play after the opening. You can also get high templar out faster than you are used to because of your pressure and relative safety. Once you have established your third, roaches will no longer be very strong against your gas-heavy composition. Try to maintain distance between infestors and your army as possible with forcefields and make sure you have enough aoe to deal with infested terran spam. ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-11-2122_02_59.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-11-2122_03_52.jpg) If you are out of forcefields, use storm on roaches since you can't negate their damage entirely. ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-11-2122_04_07.jpg) Immortals are pretty good Playing blindly, you will always get 2 sentries out before WG finishes. However, you will need to use your probe(s) on the map to sniff out these builds as they are coming to add additional cannons and sentries at home rather than warping in zealots aggressively. As in all FFE situations, your success here will come from your ability to scout effectively. But you are also somewhat safer against these because you finish your WG research and have additional warpgates available much faster.
Caveats
+ Show Spoiler +New Philosophy+ Show Spoiler +As always when you are learning a new style, you must adjust to the new options you have in terms of transitions later on. This build gets 2 gases very quickly, and adds the 2nd 2 geysers while you are only spending minerals on attacking units. This means you will have more gas than you are used to because you are not spending as much of it early on making stalkers, more sentries, or quicker tech. It will be awkward trying to spend all of this gas right away; you will find that you can get up to DTs and high templars much quicker than you usually can. Abuse that! You can prepare for DT drop timings or archon/chargelot timings quicker than you are used to, so make sure you capitalize on your gas income as soon as possible. This style relies heavily on harass and splitting up your army, so get used to executing small drops and proxy warp-ins to do chip damage. ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-11-2122_02_23.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-11-2122_00_09.jpg) Start getting more comfortable with camera hotkeys; you can more efficiently dump units into a location without having to mousemove/mini map click there. This concept is difficult to explore. HerO will typically have 2 random probes out on the map and will somehow be able to establish convenient proxy pylons to ensure a close warp-in. This will come only with a lot of experience. You will notice your 2nd hidden probe should leave your base right before lings are out on the map. CB'ing your first zealot to deny access to the tower will be pivotal in maintaining the secret identities of your spies, so do as you will with this somewhat expendable zealot ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-11-2121_58_58.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-11-2122_04_57.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n536/alej15/Screenshot2011-11-2122_28_27.jpg) what up bitches .
Late Game Situations
+ Show Spoiler +Transitioning quite freely into the mid game, you will be making more and more decisions every game which usually result in longer games with more expansions. This style will give you the core infrastructure you need to harass throughout the game, as warp prisms and dark templars are easy to grab from the opener. There is no excuse to not always have a pylon or a warp prism in a favorable location that you can warp in units to harass/cancel expansions effectively. You want the zerg to play as defensively and conservatively as possible if you want to establish additional bases without fear of a straight-forward attack.
Ultras are quite easy to deal with out of this opener, as you are quite gateway heavy and have the ability to warp in high templars for archons and dt/zealot for buffers. As you are not relying on colossus to deal aoe damage, you can also pump out a good deal of immortals since your robo won't be tied up outside of WP/obs production
Broods can be dealt with using stalker/archon/ht/sentry compositions, but void rays can help in late game situations against roach/brood or roach/infestor/brood compositions as well.
Conclusion
+ Show Spoiler +In situations outside of a 2 base all-in from the zerg, this build will get you up to the 8-minute mark when your zealots should be assaulting the third. From there, it is pretty open ended. The 2 additional gateways are not listed explicitly in the build order, but after watching and playing this build many times out, I feel as though getting up to 6 gates is the "next step," whether or not you're trying to take a 3rd early. Having more gateways improves your ability to hold off roach rallies to your 3rd or nat before your stronger tech units kick in, and lacking on GW's will severely hamper your ability to move forward into the mid game with any kind of strength.
Replays & Other Resources
+ Show Spoiler +This section will be updated as always alejP v frostiZIn this case, I manage to keep my probe alive and unscouted until the very last second. He was not opening roach and didn't have lings out in time, so I pretty much won immediately. alejP v ZeNEXMunchlaZMy probe managed to get an extremely good pylon by the third before it finished, allowing me to get really good warp-ins. DT drops seal the deal. alejP v kinderZMy zealot pressure does not kill the hatchery. I probably could have killed it by focusing it down sooner but I was distracted I suppose. I use the WP to take the 3rd between my main and his 4th which goes unscouted; zergs will tend to neglect scouting bases like this for the time being, but as this kind of play becomes more popular, you probably won't be able to get away with this as easily :p alejP v lynxZI didn't get up a good pylon but because my opponent opened up with slower roaches, I was able to force more units and do at least some economic damage. A DT drop follows up to snipe the 3rd hatch as I take my own 3rd and transition into a robust, macro-oriented midgame. alejP v shortizzZThis game, my opponent opens up roach but doesn't get enough out in time to stop me from killing his 3rd. I try out a colossus transition and a slightly later 3rd and forgo WP harass, though it could have been very beneficial given the map positions. http://drop.sc/955301 base bling bust on metal. need to see this coming or gg http://sc2rep.com/replays/download?id=16869this is vs greedy 3rd with roaches not quite in time.. pretty much ideal for what we're doing. i delay the gases just a tad and it seems to really help with 4g timing http://sc2rep.com/replays/download?id=16870inbase proxy hatch that I don't scout until I can see the creep.. no quick 3rd scout, scouted early roach warren here's one vs 2 base roach aggression! it finally happened! alejP v mkengynZif you scout that he's still mining gas past 2400, get some cannons and a few stalkers to micro. also re rally your nat nexus to your main minerals and send all the probes to mine in your main. i lose a few needlessly. also there was no need to push in after i killed the nat; i got greedy. should have taken my third and teched happily. Check out HerO's vods. He does this almost every PvZ, if not the stargate build if he cannot secure hidden probes early on http://www.twitch.tv/liquidhero
Feel free to leave comments/feedback/replays
Thanks for reading
aLeJ
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are you some sort of guide writing TL angel?
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Awesome guide yet again! I have been doing something similar to this after watching HerO stream, but my build is no where near as mapped out as this is. Thanks for the writeup!
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Wow. I haven't seen any PvZ styles that I get. Watched quite a bit of Hero's stream but haven't been able to refine anything specifically from it. Thanks a lot, I'll really have to check this out some more and try it out on the ladder. Just one question... I know that you said that this is really flexible, but shouldn't muta play negate a lot of warp-prism harass. Warping in zealots and dts seems mildly fragile with mutas on the field. Thanks a lot for the guide :D
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Thanks for all the insights and detailed description for each scenario, imma steal this.
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On November 22 2011 13:41 mordanis wrote:
Wow. I haven't seen any PvZ styles that I get. Watched quite a bit of Hero's stream but haven't been able to refine anything specifically from it. Thanks a lot, I'll really have to check this out some more and try it out on the ladder. Just one question... I know that you said that this is really flexible, but shouldn't muta play negate a lot of warp-prism harass. Warping in zealots and dts seems mildly fragile with mutas on the field. Thanks a lot for the guide :D
I'm glad you bring that up. You'll be warping in the first zealots blindly for the most part (edit: outside of knowing 2 or 3 bases), and will probably follow up with at least an additional 3-4 afterwards. Mutas shouldn't be out on the field until well after this. If they are 3 basing and holding with lings, that is an indication of a rush to muta or to infestor, or their roaches are very late. If roaches never arrive on the scene to clean up the zealots, you can assume muta or infestor. Because you can't rule one of these out, I'd go for a faster blink and slower DT's just to be safe while scouting with an obs to confirm muta or infestor 100%. You can still make a WP in this situation, as it is entirely minerals that you are investing in it which you can afford to spend as long as you can get up enough gateways as well.
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United Kingdom20278 Posts
Stargate is 100 gas, you said 150 upon completion of core, maybe you meant warpgate research? Should clarify that i think
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I have actually been using this built on ladder. It is very vulnerable to 2 bases play from zerg, especially heavy roaches or roach hydras. Council should be put down immediately after first warp in. I strongly reccomend scouting, if zerg does not get a fast third, it will be wiser to play defensively. Zealot out in the open die to roach hydras without doing any damage.
However it is a solid transition into getting a third with enough pressure IF the zerg is getting a third. It is better to try and get 2 zealots and a stalker out to help you put down a proxy pylon. I favored getting storm at 11 minutes plus. This usually transition into stalker, archons and immortals for late game. Love your guide, help me tie down the built that I have been copying from hero.
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United States8476 Posts
On November 22 2011 13:58 Cyro wrote:
Stargate is 100 gas, you said 150 upon completion of core, maybe you meant warpgate research? Should clarify that i think
Better check your sources
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On November 22 2011 13:58 Cyro wrote:
Stargate is 100 gas, you said 150 upon completion of core, maybe you meant warpgate research? Should clarify that i think
stargate is 150, robo is 100
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United Kingdom20278 Posts
On November 22 2011 14:04 unit wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 13:58 Cyro wrote:
Stargate is 100 gas, you said 150 upon completion of core, maybe you meant warpgate research? Should clarify that i think stargate is 150, robo is 100
Shit. Guess its been too long... sorry
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i prefer getting 1-2 zealots to scout instead of what you said "However, you will need to use your probe(s) on the map to sniff out these builds as they are coming to add additional cannons and sentries at home rather than warping in zealots aggressively" which seems fragile.
as we all saw in mlg naniwa's zealots could have saved him the game had they been micro'd better or been combined with a probe scout to see the roach rush coming.
against that 7RR or w/e it seems it hit even before enough or any sentries came out so to hold it off you HAVE to zealot scout and build enough cannons to survive which is really the only way to hold it. I imagine we will be seeing alot of this 7RR after the MLG so instead of stopping FFE which is dumb us protoss have to just learn to scout and react even better.
the rest seems great but i would include a bit about early scouting more and suggest adding to your guide
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As a high master protoss who plays top 50 GM and wins anywhere from 9-12 points, I have to say HerO inspired me to start doing this build on maps I FFE on. Tbh the skill ceiling with this style of play is much higher than conventional protoss play, which greatly peaks any high level protoss' interest. Something you may want to note is using the "hold position" trick with your 4 gate +1 zealot pressure. When surrounding the hatch, hold position your zealots. That way, they will attack any lings trying to fight, but also target down the 3rd if no engagement is made. I'd recommend taking your 3rd as soon as your pressure begins to hit, and drop down 4 additional gateways. The DT + warp prism harass will be extremely effective if micro'd correctly, and you should have time to get your 3rd running and 8 gates + a robo and upgrades all rolling before zerg can punish you.
Great guide on this style of play, and hope to see this become the new norm with variations branching off 
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I havent even read your OP yet...but THANK YOU!
I think ur guides are great in the past, and been waiting for some good updated FFE guide!
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Do want + will use
Thanks Alej! PvZ is much easier if you spam Zealots lol.
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nice guide, Alej. Looks difficult to pull off but really compelling because I find it hard to put pressure on Zerg mid game, this build does that very well.
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Im only at the platinum level, so you may not encounter this as a response to an free at your level, but how do you defend a hydra with range upgrade all in with this? You list roach/muta/ling/bling but no hydra Your zealots will do nothing. Your stalkers won't do much and your sentries won't save you on meta/taldarim/xnc.
Going to check your replays and the vods once I get home to see if this is a way that I can play given my piss poor apm.
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Hey your game v Kinderz on shak he had like an 80+ supply lead on you when you were harassing, you had also taken a secret 3rd--if he had scouted better couldn't he have just smashed that and contained you on 2base?
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Ok just finished reading and loving it.
2 questions:
1) "Grind out the above builds until you reach the point where you have warped in 8 zealots, a robotics and a twilight council until you are comfortable with this style." So do you always get 8 zealots blindly apart from 2-base roach?
2) Silly question actually - but when is the 'normal' zerg 3rd base taken (e.g. in 3-base roach builds) so I can distinguish if im facing 2-base play or not.
3) Would using a 2zealot scout instead of 2probes as u suggest put this build behind? Is it going to miss some sorta timing by putting the 2nd/3rd/4th GW a little later? Just feel that 2zealot scout is more reliable cos my probes mite die too quickly!
4) When facing 2-base roach or 3-base roach, how do u know when to take the third base?
Thanks - very excited to try this out!
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I've seen ZeNEXYong do this a ton lately, almost every FFE in fact.
You can find the replay packs on his stream thread.
I stole the build from there, and this is a great writeup.
Thanks Alejandrisha!
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Great opening. I do it all the time, but you should specify that it's designed to deal with 3-base Z. There's not much reason to do a small attack against a 2-base tech build. You either want to all-in it before they get their tech, drop harass behind the spines (in which case you want to change the BO to get an earlier robo), or sit back and macro/tech.
Also, this is probably obvious to everyone, but you can also go colossus if they're not going muta. You sort of made it seem like the opening transitions better into immortal/HT, but colossus works fine too.
Great guide tho. Thanks for posting.
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Wow Alej you're really good at writing up guides on builds that I use all the time ^^ Good job again.
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Do you guys ffe every map?!?!?
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On November 22 2011 16:07 MagickMan wrote:
Do you guys ffe every map?!?!?
Yep.
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it's where PvZ seems to be headed 
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On November 22 2011 14:25 SaroVati wrote:
I'd recommend taking your 3rd as soon as your pressure begins to hit, and drop down 4 additional gateways.
this sounds extremely risky if he has early roaches and just rallies them over. I wouldn't recommend that.adding 2 more gates and adding stalkers like the op suggests is a lot safer.
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I actually do this warp prism harass, +1 zealot timing, dt harass style. I get flamed on ladder so hard for playing "cheesy". The +1 zealot timing is awesome if zerg is cutting corners.
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On November 22 2011 16:13 coL.rsvp wrote:Yep.
I have to say man, you were ahead of your time quite a bit - I remember when you were doing 15nex/FFE when everyone and their mother used 3 gate sentry expo lol.
Very nice guide, though I almost never use DTs any more...they seem to put me behind every single time I do "not" get a free-win. And while free-wins are awsome, that's not exactly what I'm aiming for in a stable playstyle...
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I've been using this quite often too.
In some games if I notice a quick third/scouted that there is no all-in, I'll get the Stalker instead of Sentry to chase/kill any overlord that tries to scout my base faster. It's good if you manage to don't use the cybercore as part of the wall too. Mainly because zerg will know something is up if the core is being chronoboosted more than a few times. It's quite important to attempt to chase away any lings sitting outside your base with the zealot if you are going to be chronoboosting the +1 on the forge.
Another thing is if the situation allows you to delay/cut down on sentries, you can save up for a stargate and show it to an Overlord if you see any coming to scout, you can choose not to build anything from the stargate or just cancel it once the overlord is dead. This will give the zerg more things to think about, spores, extra queens, moving his overlords, maybe a faster lair etc. Some disagree with me that by showing the stargate you somehow "force" the zerg to get detection(spores or faster lair for Overseer) but I rather have my zealot attack be slightly more effective compared to relying on DTs making it in their base without them having detection. The warpprism should be warping in zealots together with DTs to take out spores in the main if necessary anyway.
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On November 22 2011 14:47 Necrophantasia wrote:
Im only at the platinum level, so you may not encounter this as a response to an free at your level, but how do you defend a hydra with range upgrade all in with this? You list roach/muta/ling/bling but no hydra Your zealots will do nothing. Your stalkers won't do much and your sentries won't save you on meta/taldarim/xnc.
Going to check your replays and the vods once I get home to see if this is a way that I can play given my piss poor apm.
To put it this way, by doing this build you basically almost always force the zerg to go roaches(he most probably already have the roach warren down to prevent any 7/8 gate all-ins anyway). For him to go hydras it would not only take time, but it is also scoutable with your obs.
If you know it's coming, just throw down a robo bay for colossi instead of going down the DT path. This is the easiest way to deal with mass hydra all-in.
On the other hand, I prefer to go blink stalker DT vs Hydras. Why?
If he were to do any Hydra all-in right after your 4 gate push, it would be mad of him because there simply is no creep in the first place(if he is active in spreading/short rush distance, of course you must clear it before it reaches your base), meaning there is no retreat for his hydras. Blink stalkers don't do bad vs hydras off-creep as long as they don't get to get too close, this can be easily done by using sentries. Besides that, DTs do extremely well against hydras because they have crappy HP and they can't kite backwards. How many Overseers will a zerg normally bring if you never showed your DTs before? Usually you will only see one. So just warp in DTs, blink and snipe that overseer, chop down those slow hydras all the way back to their base. By the time he morphs in another overseer his army would be half gone. Don't forget zerg would want every gas possible dumped into his hydra army, not overseer if he's doing an all-in.
That is why you rarely see hydra all-ins, it's gas intensive, and pretty damn weak unless he manages to get creep into your base. Just don't let a nydus pop out and you are fine. As far as I know, I've never seen someone going hydra all-in after I 4gate rush them after FFE. It's suicide.
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This looks very promising We have many protoss builds posted on TL but they are often not this solid. I have been working on hero's forge FE into fast DT strat myself as seen in the epic game between him and idra on metalopolis. This strategy however gets pressure on earlier, is safer to 2base all ins and gets tech just a little slower. Do you think hero techs DTs really fast when he thinks he can abuse something/wants to take a risk or did he just change his style to something more solid?
Also I'm glad that this is an aggressive/harassive build which requires higher APM and good multitasking. Deathball vs deathball needs to die ^^
Edit: Ooh I now realize this is almost the exact same build naniwa was using in his PvZs at MLG Providence. He got some fast zealot warp ins using +1, transitioning into warp prisms and colossus on 2 bases.
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On November 22 2011 15:04 bankai wrote:
Ok just finished reading and loving it.
2 questions:
1) "Grind out the above builds until you reach the point where you have warped in 8 zealots, a robotics and a twilight council until you are comfortable with this style." So do you always get 8 zealots blindly apart from 2-base roach?
2) Silly question actually - but when is the 'normal' zerg 3rd base taken (e.g. in 3-base roach builds) so I can distinguish if im facing 2-base play or not.
3) Would using a 2zealot scout instead of 2probes as u suggest put this build behind? Is it going to miss some sorta timing by putting the 2nd/3rd/4th GW a little later? Just feel that 2zealot scout is more reliable cos my probes mite die too quickly!
4) When facing 2-base roach or 3-base roach, how do u know when to take the third base?
Thanks - very excited to try this out!
1. By attacking before/at 8 minutes, you don't really expect roaches yet. Only lings and maybe spines. So yes zealots only since they kill lings in 2 hits with +1 and just deals ridiculous amount of damage to spine/hatch. Stalkers are expensive and sentries needless to say, can't kill a hatch till the next MLG in 2012.
2. Generally, 5-5.30 minutes. Some zergs take before the 5th minute, some take later at the 6th. Depends on what they have in mind.
3. Reason why you will want to make sentries from your gateways is because they cost less minerals and help defend against sudden run-by or all-in. You can use your initial zealot to scout/clear watch tower though if you don't expect pressure, nothing wrong with that. I prefer to get sentry/stalker after my first zealot to prevent any scouting overlord. If I were to do the 2 zealot scout, I rather do the FFE into 2 gate zealot pressure, but not with this build.
4. Mass roach usually won't kill you if you have sentries and immortals/blink stalkers. It's very hard to break forcefields + cannons. By the way, if you have excess minerals but you don't know whether zerg has an army large enough to kill you, just expand. If he tries to attack your 3rd and you think you can't defend it, just cancel it. Taking an expo only brings low risk but has high reward, don't hesitate to throw down that nexus!
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On November 22 2011 14:33 MagickMan wrote:
Do you ever stream Alej?
I do!
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=160262#1
I don't stream a whole lot, though. I am trying to stream more, but with finals coming up, I'm not sure how much I will be able to. I haven't quite figured out a good schedule to play within but I plan on streaming na/eu ladder in the near future. It will usually be late night EST (12-4am or something like that).
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Many thanks for such a nice guide. I'm back after a quite long break and been troubled about this matchup. Although I've slipped down to platinum I think ill manage to use this build! Will study the replays as soon as I quit working.
Again, many thanks!
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On November 22 2011 13:29 AGIANTSMURF wrote:
are you some sort of guide writing TL angel?
I am starting to think he is! :D
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Nice, gonna try this out soon!
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thank you very much for this! great guide!
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Maybe I´m missing it, but is there a thread etc which shows the proper way to walloff on every map? I´m intrested in changing from 1base openings to ffe entirely on pvz, but I just dont wanna go derp derp and make a random wall and lose.
On topic, great thread, I´ve been using a similar style for a few days and its going good, but maybe this is alot better
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saw this build on HerO`s Stream too and doing it for some time. It`s very fun to play but hard to execute, it needs a lot of practice i think. you just need the specific timings to excute it perfectly and adept to the zergplay, but thanks for the write up <3
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Canada13386 Posts
After watching the MLG finals I've been debating whether or not putting a pylon off creep near the Zerg extractor in their main is worth it or not.
I don't necessarily mean to let it finish, but if they went pool/gas first before hatch for example, then the Zerg could do a roach bust but only if they get more than 100 gas or keep a drone on gas. If my probe is scouting and makes it as far as the extractor but is about to die and the Zerg has let us say 80 or 90 gas it might be worth it to put a pylon down and cancel it once you see if they pull drones. Most maps allow you to put a pylon down behind the creep spread and near the extractor right?
The more I think about it the worse it seems but idk, it opens up the option of mindgames but it means that if drones are removed then the roach all in can be much less likely and it gives you that little bit of extra scouting right?
Just a random thought that just popped in and I would like some feedback if possible 
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I've been fooling around with hero's opening as of late, but I'm glad to see someone took the time to figure out the specific build order/timings and explain it in a nice organized manner. I'll check out the replays and add this style to my own.
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Oh very cool. I was trying to do the same thing, but didn't really have a good refinement. Thanks for writing this thing up Alej
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Awe yeah - I wanted this build!!
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Man are camera hotkeys really that important?
I'm using 1-3 for army, ° for prism, 4 robo/stargate and 5 nexus and I always felt really good about that.
Could you please tell me which camera hotkeys you use and the situation when to use them?
ps: I love that style, PvZ really seems promising for a Protoss who plays that sneaky tactic and still stays safe! Thank you for writing that guide
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Thanks for all the insights and detailed description for each scenario. I'll definitely be trying this in ladder - very excited.
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On November 23 2011 02:12 Binabik wrote:Man are camera hotkeys really that important? I'm using 1-3 for army, ° for prism, 4 robo/stargate and 5 nexus and I always felt really good about that. Could you please tell me which camera hotkeys you use and the situation when to use them? ps: I love that style, PvZ really seems promising for a Protoss who plays that sneaky tactic and still stays safe! Thank you for writing that guide
I can only speak for myself but i use my camera keys F1-F2-F3 for my bases and then I bind my proxy pylon or if I'm sitting at home just my front to Q. The camera keys just let you move around the map really efficiently. Like If i were doing WP harass I'd set the general area my WP is and I'm fighting to Q, that way I can skip between my main-natural, to continue to macro or defend a counter, and managing my attack with 1 key press. In the heat of the moment at least imho 1 key press is much >than 2 which you need to snap position on a control group. (plus Q is so convenient, I've been thinking about adding my natural to R instead of F2 but idn)
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Fantastic job, anyone else feel like Protoss players make the best guides in TL?
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Alej, you are actually a Hero yourself... these guides are amazing!
And a q for everyone: is FFE the only possible opening in PvZ??? I haven't seen a pro not do it in the longest time (outside of NoNy) and am a little sad because of it. Any thoughts...
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On November 23 2011 03:13 chambertin wrote:
Alej, you are actually a Hero yourself... these guides are amazing!
And a q for everyone: is FFE the only possible opening in PvZ??? I haven't seen a pro not do it in the longest time (outside of NoNy) and am a little sad because of it. Any thoughts...
I've seen 1 gate Stargate expo, 1 gate expand and saw some one go DT expo.
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On November 23 2011 03:13 chambertin wrote:
Alej, you are actually a Hero yourself... these guides are amazing!
And a q for everyone: is FFE the only possible opening in PvZ??? I haven't seen a pro not do it in the longest time (outside of NoNy) and am a little sad because of it. Any thoughts...
Yes, Alej is a hero. Speaking of heroes, I saw LiquidHero use 2g 1star expo on Shattered T against Ret, but like 3g expo, you've got to kill a decent amount of zerg stuff. I recommend just practicing the FFE. That's what I'm in the process of doing, and yes, I lose more often because success with it is highly dependent on scouting and reacting properly. I'm only in Plat but even at this low level the zergs have gotten very good at climbing ahead of a toss that goes for anything slower than a 1 or 2 gate expo.
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Looks like I know what too expect the next few weeks in zvp. Very well thought out and nice write up.
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Thanks everyone for all the positive feedback so far. It's not as fleshed out as I'd like it to be, simply because I wouldn't want to tell you to do something because I do it, or I saw some one do it once. No one knows when exactly you should go for DT rather than immortal rather than colossus rather than unit composition X with Y gateways at Z minutes and Alpha seconds. I wanted to just give you a general picture and give you options to explore in the mid game. Amateurs discuss strategy; professionals discuss logistics amirite?
I will say that a colossus transition into 3 base play is probably the safest way to follow up as long as you are watching for muta switches. I am a fan of following up the aggression with additional aggression in the form of WP DT. I understand that many will see that as a gimmicky way to follow up, but I wholeheartedly believe that even if the zerg has prepared for it (and it does come VERY early if you plan it out and get the council a bit earlier and you can afford them pretty easily gas-wise), you can still force SOMETHING to happen and get his units, drones, detectors tied up in one location while you snipe a hatchery elsewhere. I know I have been in the death-ball mentality for a long time, but using this style has made me realize something: zergs aren't quite used to dealing with protoss drops yet! A lot of times even the best zergs will send the wrong amount or the wrong type of army to clean up a WP, and HerO will snipe the 3rd AND THE NAT with a combination of blink stalkers, DTs, proxy pylons, and warp prisms with zealot dumps SIMULTANEOUSLY.
There is a lot of unexplored territory here; I know when I was first getting used to the style and watching HerO play it out, I kept thinking to myself: I did not KNOW that you could do that! Hopefully with this thread and the great protoss minds that have assembled here, we can continue to figure this shit out!
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Hey Alejandrisha, what's you opinion no going FFE into mass air PvZ? I've seen WhiteRa, HongUn and ZenexYong all go FFE into 2 stargates, pump about 4 VRs, get phoenixes into eventually Carriers+Momaship and mass air upgrade. It seems pretty much unbeatable late game and I've seldom seen them lose once they get 2 Carriers out. Have you ever messed around with it?
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On November 23 2011 07:28 Mikelius wrote:
Hey Alejandrisha, what's you opinion no going FFE into mass air PvZ? I've seen WhiteRa, HongUn and ZenexYong all go FFE into 2 stargates, pump about 4 VRs, get phoenixes into eventually Carriers+Momaship and mass air upgrade. It seems pretty much unbeatable late game and I've seldom seen them lose once they get 2 Carriers out. Have you ever messed around with it?
It's possible. It's pretty easy to get going on a map where the 3rd is really easy to secure. The endgame composition of carrier/vr + mothership........ I don't think zerg has units that can bring that down so it's just a matter of getting there in time. I haven't really done it much myself, though I have done double stargate plays off of an FFE. I like double stargate VR much more than single star Void because I feel like single star Void almost never does any damage unless you get reeeeeally lucky and it's pretty easy for the zerg to spam drones against 1star.
I think I've seen sase do that exact thing on Tal'darim altar once on his stream, and I've seen white-ra do it as well, obviously on shakuras. That's neither here nor there though :D
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On November 22 2011 18:45 Xenorawks wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 15:04 bankai wrote:
Ok just finished reading and loving it.
2 questions:
1) "Grind out the above builds until you reach the point where you have warped in 8 zealots, a robotics and a twilight council until you are comfortable with this style." So do you always get 8 zealots blindly apart from 2-base roach?
2) Silly question actually - but when is the 'normal' zerg 3rd base taken (e.g. in 3-base roach builds) so I can distinguish if im facing 2-base play or not.
3) Would using a 2zealot scout instead of 2probes as u suggest put this build behind? Is it going to miss some sorta timing by putting the 2nd/3rd/4th GW a little later? Just feel that 2zealot scout is more reliable cos my probes mite die too quickly!
4) When facing 2-base roach or 3-base roach, how do u know when to take the third base?
Thanks - very excited to try this out!
1. By attacking before/at 8 minutes, you don't really expect roaches yet. Only lings and maybe spines. So yes zealots only since they kill lings in 2 hits with +1 and just deals ridiculous amount of damage to spine/hatch. Stalkers are expensive and sentries needless to say, can't kill a hatch till the next MLG in 2012. 2. Generally, 5-5.30 minutes. Some zergs take before the 5th minute, some take later at the 6th. Depends on what they have in mind. 3. Reason why you will want to make sentries from your gateways is because they cost less minerals and help defend against sudden run-by or all-in. You can use your initial zealot to scout/clear watch tower though if you don't expect pressure, nothing wrong with that. I prefer to get sentry/stalker after my first zealot to prevent any scouting overlord. If I were to do the 2 zealot scout, I rather do the FFE into 2 gate zealot pressure, but not with this build. 4. Mass roach usually won't kill you if you have sentries and immortals/blink stalkers. It's very hard to break forcefields + cannons. By the way, if you have excess minerals but you don't know whether zerg has an army large enough to kill you, just expand. If he tries to attack your 3rd and you think you can't defend it, just cancel it. Taking an expo only brings low risk but has high reward, don't hesitate to throw down that nexus!
Thx for this advice, sounds very solid.
Was just watching the replay on Taldarim Altar...was wondering, IF they go 2-base (which you know by confirming no 3rd base at the latest 6:30min), then how do you scout their tech and the type of 2-base build? You didnt see anything in their base - were u just relying on scoutning the front with your zealot pressure?
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On November 23 2011 08:22 bankai wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2011 18:45 Xenorawks wrote:On November 22 2011 15:04 bankai wrote:
Ok just finished reading and loving it.
2 questions:
1) "Grind out the above builds until you reach the point where you have warped in 8 zealots, a robotics and a twilight council until you are comfortable with this style." So do you always get 8 zealots blindly apart from 2-base roach?
2) Silly question actually - but when is the 'normal' zerg 3rd base taken (e.g. in 3-base roach builds) so I can distinguish if im facing 2-base play or not.
3) Would using a 2zealot scout instead of 2probes as u suggest put this build behind? Is it going to miss some sorta timing by putting the 2nd/3rd/4th GW a little later? Just feel that 2zealot scout is more reliable cos my probes mite die too quickly!
4) When facing 2-base roach or 3-base roach, how do u know when to take the third base?
Thanks - very excited to try this out!
1. By attacking before/at 8 minutes, you don't really expect roaches yet. Only lings and maybe spines. So yes zealots only since they kill lings in 2 hits with +1 and just deals ridiculous amount of damage to spine/hatch. Stalkers are expensive and sentries needless to say, can't kill a hatch till the next MLG in 2012. 2. Generally, 5-5.30 minutes. Some zergs take before the 5th minute, some take later at the 6th. Depends on what they have in mind. 3. Reason why you will want to make sentries from your gateways is because they cost less minerals and help defend against sudden run-by or all-in. You can use your initial zealot to scout/clear watch tower though if you don't expect pressure, nothing wrong with that. I prefer to get sentry/stalker after my first zealot to prevent any scouting overlord. If I were to do the 2 zealot scout, I rather do the FFE into 2 gate zealot pressure, but not with this build. 4. Mass roach usually won't kill you if you have sentries and immortals/blink stalkers. It's very hard to break forcefields + cannons. By the way, if you have excess minerals but you don't know whether zerg has an army large enough to kill you, just expand. If he tries to attack your 3rd and you think you can't defend it, just cancel it. Taking an expo only brings low risk but has high reward, don't hesitate to throw down that nexus! Thx for this advice, sounds very solid. Was just watching the replay on Taldarim Altar...was wondering, IF they go 2-base (which you know by confirming no 3rd base at the latest 6:30min), then how do you scout their tech and the type of 2-base build? You didnt see anything in their base - were u just relying on scoutning the front with your zealot pressure?
Don't do what I did that game haha.
If he was doing a 2 base whatever, I'd probably die immediately. It's hard to fit in the first zealot after your core starts because you have a lot of things to spend minerals on, but the more I think about it, the more necessary that zealot seems to be for scouting. Also, you should scout with the damn probe you make the proxy pylon with. I always seem to forget to do that for some reason O_O
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I this great! my pvz woahs are over<3
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On November 23 2011 08:25 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2011 08:22 bankai wrote:On November 22 2011 18:45 Xenorawks wrote:On November 22 2011 15:04 bankai wrote:
Ok just finished reading and loving it.
2 questions:
1) "Grind out the above builds until you reach the point where you have warped in 8 zealots, a robotics and a twilight council until you are comfortable with this style." So do you always get 8 zealots blindly apart from 2-base roach?
2) Silly question actually - but when is the 'normal' zerg 3rd base taken (e.g. in 3-base roach builds) so I can distinguish if im facing 2-base play or not.
3) Would using a 2zealot scout instead of 2probes as u suggest put this build behind? Is it going to miss some sorta timing by putting the 2nd/3rd/4th GW a little later? Just feel that 2zealot scout is more reliable cos my probes mite die too quickly!
4) When facing 2-base roach or 3-base roach, how do u know when to take the third base?
Thanks - very excited to try this out!
1. By attacking before/at 8 minutes, you don't really expect roaches yet. Only lings and maybe spines. So yes zealots only since they kill lings in 2 hits with +1 and just deals ridiculous amount of damage to spine/hatch. Stalkers are expensive and sentries needless to say, can't kill a hatch till the next MLG in 2012. 2. Generally, 5-5.30 minutes. Some zergs take before the 5th minute, some take later at the 6th. Depends on what they have in mind. 3. Reason why you will want to make sentries from your gateways is because they cost less minerals and help defend against sudden run-by or all-in. You can use your initial zealot to scout/clear watch tower though if you don't expect pressure, nothing wrong with that. I prefer to get sentry/stalker after my first zealot to prevent any scouting overlord. If I were to do the 2 zealot scout, I rather do the FFE into 2 gate zealot pressure, but not with this build. 4. Mass roach usually won't kill you if you have sentries and immortals/blink stalkers. It's very hard to break forcefields + cannons. By the way, if you have excess minerals but you don't know whether zerg has an army large enough to kill you, just expand. If he tries to attack your 3rd and you think you can't defend it, just cancel it. Taking an expo only brings low risk but has high reward, don't hesitate to throw down that nexus! Thx for this advice, sounds very solid. Was just watching the replay on Taldarim Altar...was wondering, IF they go 2-base (which you know by confirming no 3rd base at the latest 6:30min), then how do you scout their tech and the type of 2-base build? You didnt see anything in their base - were u just relying on scoutning the front with your zealot pressure? Don't do what I did that game haha. If he was doing a 2 base whatever, I'd probably die immediately. It's hard to fit in the first zealot after your core starts because you have a lot of things to spend minerals on, but the more I think about it, the more necessary that zealot seems to be for scouting. Also, you should scout with the damn probe you make the proxy pylon with. I always seem to forget to do that for some reason O_O
well doesnt matter if u didnt scout that game, u still smashed him
the problem i have with probe scouting a 2-base attack is they dont normally survive long enough to get into the base...leaving only scouting the front units possible. Thats why I thought the 1zealot/1probe scout would be more reliable (but even then zerg seem to expect this and prepare just enough lings to stop that and keep you in the dark).
So I take it that to get that Core straight after the 1st GW, you HAVE to build sentries first to free up minerals? In other words, is it possible to edit your opener a little to start with 2zealots/2sentries from the 1st GW to allow for better scouting, and still achieve the timings u want in this build (e.g. getting 2nd/3rd/4th GW down on 36supply)?
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On November 23 2011 08:50 bankai wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2011 08:25 Alejandrisha wrote:On November 23 2011 08:22 bankai wrote:On November 22 2011 18:45 Xenorawks wrote:On November 22 2011 15:04 bankai wrote:
Ok just finished reading and loving it.
2 questions:
1) "Grind out the above builds until you reach the point where you have warped in 8 zealots, a robotics and a twilight council until you are comfortable with this style." So do you always get 8 zealots blindly apart from 2-base roach?
2) Silly question actually - but when is the 'normal' zerg 3rd base taken (e.g. in 3-base roach builds) so I can distinguish if im facing 2-base play or not.
3) Would using a 2zealot scout instead of 2probes as u suggest put this build behind? Is it going to miss some sorta timing by putting the 2nd/3rd/4th GW a little later? Just feel that 2zealot scout is more reliable cos my probes mite die too quickly!
4) When facing 2-base roach or 3-base roach, how do u know when to take the third base?
Thanks - very excited to try this out!
1. By attacking before/at 8 minutes, you don't really expect roaches yet. Only lings and maybe spines. So yes zealots only since they kill lings in 2 hits with +1 and just deals ridiculous amount of damage to spine/hatch. Stalkers are expensive and sentries needless to say, can't kill a hatch till the next MLG in 2012. 2. Generally, 5-5.30 minutes. Some zergs take before the 5th minute, some take later at the 6th. Depends on what they have in mind. 3. Reason why you will want to make sentries from your gateways is because they cost less minerals and help defend against sudden run-by or all-in. You can use your initial zealot to scout/clear watch tower though if you don't expect pressure, nothing wrong with that. I prefer to get sentry/stalker after my first zealot to prevent any scouting overlord. If I were to do the 2 zealot scout, I rather do the FFE into 2 gate zealot pressure, but not with this build. 4. Mass roach usually won't kill you if you have sentries and immortals/blink stalkers. It's very hard to break forcefields + cannons. By the way, if you have excess minerals but you don't know whether zerg has an army large enough to kill you, just expand. If he tries to attack your 3rd and you think you can't defend it, just cancel it. Taking an expo only brings low risk but has high reward, don't hesitate to throw down that nexus! Thx for this advice, sounds very solid. Was just watching the replay on Taldarim Altar...was wondering, IF they go 2-base (which you know by confirming no 3rd base at the latest 6:30min), then how do you scout their tech and the type of 2-base build? You didnt see anything in their base - were u just relying on scoutning the front with your zealot pressure? Don't do what I did that game haha. If he was doing a 2 base whatever, I'd probably die immediately. It's hard to fit in the first zealot after your core starts because you have a lot of things to spend minerals on, but the more I think about it, the more necessary that zealot seems to be for scouting. Also, you should scout with the damn probe you make the proxy pylon with. I always seem to forget to do that for some reason O_O well doesnt matter if u didnt scout that game, u still smashed him the problem i have with probe scouting a 2-base attack is they dont normally survive long enough to get into the base...leaving only scouting the front units possible. Thats why I thought the 1zealot/1probe scout would be more reliable (but even then zerg seem to expect this and prepare just enough lings to stop that and keep you in the dark). So I take it that to get that Core straight after the 1st GW, you HAVE to build sentries first to free up minerals? In other words, is it possible to edit your opener a little to start with 2zealots/2sentries from the 1st GW to allow for better scouting, and still achieve the timings u want in this build (e.g. getting 2nd/3rd/4th GW down on 36supply)?
I could probably squeeze in a 2nd zealot but it would slow down the wg push by a tad or it would skimp on probes a little bit. But if it makes the build better, it's something that has to be done. I'm not quite sure what is the best combination of units to get from the 1st gw. I have done 2 zealots which helps when you clear the tower, but I don't think there is any sense in bringing any amount of sentries along with the zealots. I will play my next bunch of pvz's doing this, getting 2 zealots every time and I'll see how I do in games where the Z was going 2 base.. this might take a little bit of time though. I'll certainly update the OP asap with anything, including info from other players who have actually tried doing the different variations against 2 and 3 base play
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On November 23 2011 08:41 Exoticidea wrote:
woahs
woes.
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I'm really loving this style of PvZ, thanks for this guide! I'm normally really lost in this matchup. Best part is you can hit before mutas come out, and tons of zergs are going heavy muta these days. It also really punishes players who go for a quick 3rd and drone hard while delaying their tech. Had a game where I was able to kill all 3 of the zergs hatches lol...+1 zealots just shred through lings, especially when they are hard to surround in the mineral patch. And while you are harassing one base you can just move your warp prism to the next one.
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On November 23 2011 11:40 flipstorm wrote:
I'm really loving this style of PvZ, thanks for this guide! I'm normally really lost in this matchup. Best part is you can hit before mutas come out, and tons of zergs are going heavy muta these days. It also really punishes players who go for a quick 3rd and drone hard while delaying their tech. Had a game where I was able to kill all 3 of the zergs hatches lol...+1 zealots just shred through lings, especially when they are hard to surround in the mineral patch. And while you are harassing one base you can just move your warp prism to the next one.
Yep. This build allows for much more dynamic play in that respect, which is why I love it so much!
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isnt this the build that naniwa used in last MLG? 4gate +1 warp prism pressure into collosus 2base timming attack?
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The opener is similar... but this is more like outlining a new, harass-based PvZ style that can react to what army composition he defends with. That timing attack that Naniwa did is just one of many possible transitions.
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Thanks for this Alejandrisha. I've tried my own FFE into 4-gate pressure in lowly diamond-league but you have ironed out the timings in a manner that makes more sense that what I was doing. I like to play a harass based style and this sets me up for that. This build also allows to pressure heavily enough that mass mutas aren't a threat in the mid-game (if the game goes long, they might still make an appearance). The fast third allows me to play the game as I really want to play. So often, I get stuck on 2-base with an oversaturation problem.
Unfortunately, post-MLG, 4 out of every 5 zerg I play roach rush me off one hatch, or just after they drop their natural hatch. Like other tosses, if I scout it, I can usually defend it. But if I fail to scout it, I run into trouble.
I am wondering what the best followup is if the zerg has forced me to make 4+ cannons to defend their roaches. I've seen three followups from them: they are taking a 3rd while they roach harass, they just mass more roaches, or they tech switch and mass off of two base. The hardest for me to deal with is when they take the fast third. I suppose I should look to attack ASAP after I hold their rush. However, if they are smart, they get away with most of their roaches and it takes me a couple of minutes to field an army.
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I don't think your FFE builds are safe. 15 pools on standard maps get to your nat at 4:10 if they don't waste any time. Your nexus first build I can't remember exactly but the cannon gets finished at ~4:20. 6 lings in your base is a pretty big issue, and if it's later than that he could just target down the cannon.
This is causing me to always forge, pylon block nat, another pylon, cannon,gate if I go nexus first and always go pylon forge nexus pylon cannon gate if i forge first. The issue is this delays my warpgate by quite a bit. With 4 chrono's the earliest I get it is 8:00, where in your replay i think it was finishing at ~7:30
Any tips?
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United States8476 Posts
On November 24 2011 07:19 Complete wrote:
I don't think your FFE builds are safe. 15 pools on standard maps get to your nat at 4:10 if they don't waste any time. Your nexus first build I can't remember exactly but the cannon gets finished at ~4:20. 6 lings in your base is a pretty big issue, and if it's later than that he could just target down the cannon.
This is causing me to always forge, pylon block nat, another pylon, cannon,gate if I go nexus first and always go pylon forge nexus pylon cannon gate if i forge first. The issue is this delays my warpgate by quite a bit. With 4 chrono's the earliest I get it is 8:00, where in your replay i think it was finishing at ~7:30
Any tips?
Send a replay. His opening is standard, so there should be no problem. Sometimes you do have to pull probes to block or add a temporary 2nd gateway.
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Do you think this style is too APM heavy for a middling platinum player like myself? Is there too much going on to be able to implement it well? Having trouble in PvZ, and willing to try anything new, really.
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High-Master Protoss here... Been trying this style quite a bit lately. It really seems quite powerful. Personally I just stay on 2 base unless there is some reason for me to take a third. The skill ceiling is what I love most about this style. Mostly what I've been doing is sniping the third with those 8 zealots, then going for a 4 Sentry WP drop in the main while I poke the front with my Blink Stalker army. But watching replays I've realized I could even warp in a couple DTs and send them to the third while I'm doing all that.
This harass style off 2 base is very strong if you can out multitask your opponent. All the excess gas I find myself with in the early game due to making the 8 Zealots is also great, and makes throwing down that Dark Shrine quite easy, and the DTs become quite valuable as the game progresses. All the tech becomes even more valuable and makes this style very versatile. If they go mass roach, you can add Immortals from your Robo, if they go infestor+ling or muta+ling you can go Archons thanks to the DTs and you already have Blink for the Mutas.
Thank you OP for the guide.
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On November 24 2011 08:05 Leafs wrote:
Do you think this style is too APM heavy for a middling platinum player like myself? Is there too much going on to be able to implement it well? Having trouble in PvZ, and willing to try anything new, really.
It is. I know cuz i'm the same as you. However, you should just do the build. you wont get better unless you push yourself.
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On November 24 2011 08:05 Leafs wrote:
Do you think this style is too APM heavy for a middling platinum player like myself? Is there too much going on to be able to implement it well? Having trouble in PvZ, and willing to try anything new, really.
It's tough to make it work as well as it can, sure. But using this build will force you to multitask and that's they only way you will improve
My last guide was kinda of like that in the sense that the whole thing falls flat unless your mechanics are sound. I think that is the way we should be playing right now with the game in its infancy!
@Zeppelin535- I'm glad you appreciate the versatility of this build as much as I do! I agree that doing the harass in no way guarantees you a free third. I've had success with powering off of 2 bases for quite some time before taking a 3rd if I take one before the game is over. Against anything but 2/3 base roach and 2 base infestor, you can take a 3rd pretty safely if you do some damage and keep your macro up in the meantime, adding gates as you go.
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Been trying so hard to use this style, but no one at my level even takes a third anymore. It's just 2 base into a bazillion roaches.
My 8 +1 zealots don't do anything and I just die to roach. What to do?
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On November 24 2011 12:48 Necrophantasia wrote:
Been trying so hard to use this style, but no one at my level even takes a third anymore. It's just 2 base into a bazillion roaches.
My 8 +1 zealots don't do anything and I just die to roach. What to do?
This can be problematic. I've been trying to find sure-fire ways to scout whether or not a 3rd has been taken; getting 2 zealots out before WG can do the trick as long as they dont have a lot of speedlings out on the map at that time, which should clue you into some kind of 2 base shenanigans. Using the probes you hide on the map before lings are out can also be of use but it is tough to use that scout and still hide the fact you might have pylons some where. link a replay here if you'd like some additional help.
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On November 24 2011 12:48 Necrophantasia wrote:
Been trying so hard to use this style, but no one at my level even takes a third anymore. It's just 2 base into a bazillion roaches.
My 8 +1 zealots don't do anything and I just die to roach. What to do?
Actually, the FFE into 4 gate rush does pretty well against roach all in. You are supposed to have like 2 sentries ready if you consistently build them out of your 1 gate, once you know it's a 2 base roach, you just have to add cannons, and holf off with forcefields until your warp gate tech is done. Your warp gate tech should be done only a little later than his roach attack so just warp in stalkers/sentries after that you'll be fine. Add a robo afterwards to get obs and immortal just in case he goes for burrow tech. A 2 base zerg army cannot fight a 2 base protoss army, no reason for you to die there. Just don't warp in zealots if he mass roach.
Maybe you have problem scouting the 2 base roach rush? It's actually the same for any FFE build, you have to scout with either 2-3 probes, or zealot/probe to be safe. Waiting for 2 zealots is a little late, but it'll do too.
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Thank you for the advice. It seems like its more of a me not scouting right and being unprepared thing than a weakness of the build it seems.
I do have two sentries but the 4 forcefields I get doesn't seen to be enough on shattered temple, but it seems I need to work on scouting. I'll keep that in mind.
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Hey, I really love your guides, they help my play out so much! I have a problem though, with FFE in general. How do you stop the 6 pool? Even if i scout them 1st on a 4 player map, I just have no idea how to respond...
My probes either die defending my cannon, or can't stop the lings from killing my pylon! What do you do if you scout a 6-7 pool?
I know you briefly mention in the guide, but I was wondering if maybe you have a more in depth response?
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On November 24 2011 13:43 Turo wrote:
Hey, I really love your guides, they help my play out so much! I have a problem though, with FFE in general. How do you stop the 6 pool? Even if i scout them 1st on a 4 player map, I just have no idea how to respond...
My probes either die defending my cannon, or can't stop the lings from killing my pylon! What do you do if you scout a 6-7 pool?
I know you briefly mention in the guide, but I was wondering if maybe you have a more in depth response?
i'll have a friend of mine 6pool me and i'll upload it in the near future
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This sounds so good! I'll be giving it a very thorough read when it isn't 5am in the morning. Thank you for this guide
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On November 24 2011 13:50 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2011 13:43 Turo wrote:
Hey, I really love your guides, they help my play out so much! I have a problem though, with FFE in general. How do you stop the 6 pool? Even if i scout them 1st on a 4 player map, I just have no idea how to respond...
My probes either die defending my cannon, or can't stop the lings from killing my pylon! What do you do if you scout a 6-7 pool?
I know you briefly mention in the guide, but I was wondering if maybe you have a more in depth response? i'll have a friend of mine 6pool me and i'll upload it in the near future
thanks!
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There's a great 6 pool guide on the site, take a look around.
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That completely ignores the fact that with 1g FE Z has to be afraid of pressure the first 8 minutes compared to the FFE. Has to be afraid of nexus cancels etc. etc.
(not saying which is better, just saying your statistics aren't the end discussion).
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So what if you don't get any of the hidden pylons down?
Do you just warp in 4z and walk them over to your opponents third?
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I highly recommend people try HerO's PvZ style out, and this is a really nice intro guide into his style. I think a great game for people trying to learn HerO's style is his series vs Sheth in the dreamhack winter 2011 ro16(or 8?). HerO's a genius with this harass; he reminds me a bit of Jaedong, he just demands control of the game with his awesome micro and speed and when he can dictate that control, he just looks unstoppable PvZ.
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On November 27 2011 05:35 Arisen wrote:
I highly recommend people try HerO's PvZ style out, and this is a really nice intro guide into his style. I think a great game for people trying to learn HerO's style is his series vs Sheth in the dreamhack winter 2011 ro16(or 8?). HerO's a genius with this harass; he reminds me a bit of Jaedong, he just demands control of the game with his awesome micro and speed and when he can dictate that control, he just looks unstoppable PvZ.
Really? Hero reminds you of Jeadong? He reminds me more of Bisu. This style is awesome, but requires some serious practice. My win rate vs Z has plummeted since adopting this style, but I know it's just a matter of time before I get the multitasking down.
But i have the same question as CrazyF1r3f0x. What do you do if you probes are discovered.
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On November 27 2011 04:56 CrazyF1r3f0x wrote:
So what if you don't get any of the hidden pylons down?
Do you just warp in 4z and walk them over to your opponents third?
You can. You won't do anything vs 2/3 base roach in that case, but if he is only pure ling you can still do damage and force additional lings. If you can't get any pylons up you should, in desperation, try to establish a somewhat closer one with the zealot(s) you made from your GW
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On November 27 2011 07:15 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2011 04:56 CrazyF1r3f0x wrote:
So what if you don't get any of the hidden pylons down?
Do you just warp in 4z and walk them over to your opponents third? You can. You won't do anything vs 2/3 base roach in that case, but if he is only pure ling you can still do damage and force additional lings. If you can't get any pylons up you should, in desperation, try to establish a somewhat closer one with the zealot(s) you made from your GW
if it completely fails, I prefer warping in some sentries at my natural and gear up to take a third.
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What about maps like shattered temple where there is no access to a third?
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I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window.
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On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window.
I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass.
DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too,
Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early?
Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop.
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On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:Show nested quote +On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window. I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass. DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too, Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early? Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop.
Some thoughts on this from an experienced player?
Was thinking, does taking an early third ourselves work against 3-base roach (zerg taking an early third)?
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On December 02 2011 07:51 bankai wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window. I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass. DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too, Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early? Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop. Some thoughts on this from an experienced player? Was thinking, does taking an early third ourselves work against 3-base roach (zerg taking an early third)?
I haven't really played much of the really early WP+DT stuff, but I often open similarly up until the robo+twilight+zealot harass. I think getting blink and collossi is a much easier way to play. You can easily take a 3rd against 3 base roach at around 13 minutes, with 2 collossi out. Dealing with the mutas that often follow the roach opening just requires a good sense of when mutas will come. Make 1-2 cannons and move blink stalkers into position at that time.
Like canopus said, you can't kill their 3rd base even with a close pylon if they have roaches up in time. However, you can pull back your 7-8 zealots without losing many, and warp in 4 stalkers to force even more roaches+lings. Unless they make a lot of speedlings in addition to the roaches, you should get away without losing many units. Even if they have enough speedlings to catch your units, I think the harass is almost always worth it economically.
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On December 02 2011 08:51 iSTime wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 07:51 bankai wrote:On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window. I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass. DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too, Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early? Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop. Some thoughts on this from an experienced player? Was thinking, does taking an early third ourselves work against 3-base roach (zerg taking an early third)? I haven't really played much of the really early WP+DT stuff, but I often open similarly up until the robo+twilight+zealot harass. I think getting blink and collossi is a much easier way to play. You can easily take a 3rd against 3 base roach at around 13 minutes, with 2 collossi out. Dealing with the mutas that often follow the roach opening just requires a good sense of when mutas will come. Make 1-2 cannons and move blink stalkers into position at that time. Like canopus said, you can't kill their 3rd base even with a close pylon if they have roaches up in time. However, you can pull back your 7-8 zealots without losing many, and warp in 4 stalkers to force even more roaches+lings. Unless they make a lot of speedlings in addition to the roaches, you should get away without losing many units. Even if they have enough speedlings to catch your units, I think the harass is almost always worth it economically.
Thanks for your advice Time!
So on your 2nd paragraph, are you saying against 3-base roach you should still go ahead with the 8zealot pressure, but just wait for the next 4 stalker warp-in...in other words, still focus on denying their 3rd, but do it with an additional 4 stalkers?
Just trying to clear in my head the overall strategy against 3base roach - it sounds like the only way to play against this is to deny their third. If not, then we are way behind economically. And taking our own 3rd is not feasible cos they can roach spam shortly afterwards....is that correct?
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On December 02 2011 09:39 bankai wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 08:51 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 07:51 bankai wrote:On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window. I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass. DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too, Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early? Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop. Some thoughts on this from an experienced player? Was thinking, does taking an early third ourselves work against 3-base roach (zerg taking an early third)? I haven't really played much of the really early WP+DT stuff, but I often open similarly up until the robo+twilight+zealot harass. I think getting blink and collossi is a much easier way to play. You can easily take a 3rd against 3 base roach at around 13 minutes, with 2 collossi out. Dealing with the mutas that often follow the roach opening just requires a good sense of when mutas will come. Make 1-2 cannons and move blink stalkers into position at that time. Like canopus said, you can't kill their 3rd base even with a close pylon if they have roaches up in time. However, you can pull back your 7-8 zealots without losing many, and warp in 4 stalkers to force even more roaches+lings. Unless they make a lot of speedlings in addition to the roaches, you should get away without losing many units. Even if they have enough speedlings to catch your units, I think the harass is almost always worth it economically. Thanks for your advice Time! So on your 2nd paragraph, are you saying against 3-base roach you should still go ahead with the 8zealot pressure, but just wait for the next 4 stalker warp-in...in other words, still focus on denying their 3rd, but do it with an additional 4 stalkers? Just trying to clear in my head the overall strategy against 3base roach - it sounds like the only way to play against this is to deny their third. If not, then we are way behind economically. And taking our own 3rd is not feasible cos they can roach spam shortly afterwards....is that correct?
My experience is that the bolded is not true. The stalkers aren't really there to deny the 3rd, they're mostly there to scare the zerg into overproducing units and maybe kill a roach or two. I don't think you should ever be able to kill the 3rd base against a player who makes roaches, the purpose is just to force non-drones. It is acceptable for your 3rd to be placed later than theirs as long as you are keeping up on workers and being cost-effective with harass.
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In the 2 cannon ffe do you not put down a pylon on 17? So you just use the nexus for supply? or is that a mistake.
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Thank you for the guide. Hero is awesome and I'm always needing PvZ help.
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On December 02 2011 14:39 iSTime wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 09:39 bankai wrote:On December 02 2011 08:51 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 07:51 bankai wrote:On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window. I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass. DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too, Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early? Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop. Some thoughts on this from an experienced player? Was thinking, does taking an early third ourselves work against 3-base roach (zerg taking an early third)? I haven't really played much of the really early WP+DT stuff, but I often open similarly up until the robo+twilight+zealot harass. I think getting blink and collossi is a much easier way to play. You can easily take a 3rd against 3 base roach at around 13 minutes, with 2 collossi out. Dealing with the mutas that often follow the roach opening just requires a good sense of when mutas will come. Make 1-2 cannons and move blink stalkers into position at that time. Like canopus said, you can't kill their 3rd base even with a close pylon if they have roaches up in time. However, you can pull back your 7-8 zealots without losing many, and warp in 4 stalkers to force even more roaches+lings. Unless they make a lot of speedlings in addition to the roaches, you should get away without losing many units. Even if they have enough speedlings to catch your units, I think the harass is almost always worth it economically. Thanks for your advice Time! So on your 2nd paragraph, are you saying against 3-base roach you should still go ahead with the 8zealot pressure, but just wait for the next 4 stalker warp-in...in other words, still focus on denying their 3rd, but do it with an additional 4 stalkers? Just trying to clear in my head the overall strategy against 3base roach - it sounds like the only way to play against this is to deny their third. If not, then we are way behind economically. And taking our own 3rd is not feasible cos they can roach spam shortly afterwards....is that correct? My experience is that the bolded is not true. The stalkers aren't really there to deny the 3rd, they're mostly there to scare the zerg into overproducing units and maybe kill a roach or two. I don't think you should ever be able to kill the 3rd base against a player who makes roaches, the purpose is just to force non-drones. It is acceptable for your 3rd to be placed later than theirs as long as you are keeping up on workers and being cost-effective with harass.
Great thanks again Time!
Alej - any luck on that 2zealot scouting idea (page 3 of this thread)? Have been using this build a lot lately, and have to say it works wonders against the early third style but still having problems scouting 2-base play. From what i can see, they can do broadly one of three things:
(a) Take a later (and safer) third with roaches or roach/hydra after getting saturation at their 2-bases
(b) Mutas or ling/infestor
(c) 7:30 roach/ling all-in
Scouting the difference between (a) and (c) I find is hard, so always prepare for the 7:30min all-in with more sentries/cannons. If it doesnt come by 8mins, then I put down my robo/TC. But doing this means I wont get a WP or observer scout until 9:30min (?). Then I can either tech colossi (if roach/hydra) or blink/HT (if muta/infestor) but its this point I struggle to decide cos I dont have enough info from scouting yet.
So want to know how do you effectively scout and respond to zerg 2-base play?
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On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:
I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass.
DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too,
Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early?
Maybe something resembling Naniwa's build that Day9 explained in one of his dailies, with 2 chronoed immortals?
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On December 06 2011 07:59 bankai wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2011 14:39 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 09:39 bankai wrote:On December 02 2011 08:51 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 07:51 bankai wrote:On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window. I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass. DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too, Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early? Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop. Some thoughts on this from an experienced player? Was thinking, does taking an early third ourselves work against 3-base roach (zerg taking an early third)? I haven't really played much of the really early WP+DT stuff, but I often open similarly up until the robo+twilight+zealot harass. I think getting blink and collossi is a much easier way to play. You can easily take a 3rd against 3 base roach at around 13 minutes, with 2 collossi out. Dealing with the mutas that often follow the roach opening just requires a good sense of when mutas will come. Make 1-2 cannons and move blink stalkers into position at that time. Like canopus said, you can't kill their 3rd base even with a close pylon if they have roaches up in time. However, you can pull back your 7-8 zealots without losing many, and warp in 4 stalkers to force even more roaches+lings. Unless they make a lot of speedlings in addition to the roaches, you should get away without losing many units. Even if they have enough speedlings to catch your units, I think the harass is almost always worth it economically. Thanks for your advice Time! So on your 2nd paragraph, are you saying against 3-base roach you should still go ahead with the 8zealot pressure, but just wait for the next 4 stalker warp-in...in other words, still focus on denying their 3rd, but do it with an additional 4 stalkers? Just trying to clear in my head the overall strategy against 3base roach - it sounds like the only way to play against this is to deny their third. If not, then we are way behind economically. And taking our own 3rd is not feasible cos they can roach spam shortly afterwards....is that correct? My experience is that the bolded is not true. The stalkers aren't really there to deny the 3rd, they're mostly there to scare the zerg into overproducing units and maybe kill a roach or two. I don't think you should ever be able to kill the 3rd base against a player who makes roaches, the purpose is just to force non-drones. It is acceptable for your 3rd to be placed later than theirs as long as you are keeping up on workers and being cost-effective with harass. Great thanks again Time! Alej - any luck on that 2zealot scouting idea (page 3 of this thread)? Have been using this build a lot lately, and have to say it works wonders against the early third style but still having problems scouting 2-base play. From what i can see, they can do broadly one of three things: (a) Take a later (and safer) third with roaches or roach/hydra after getting saturation at their 2-bases (b) Mutas or ling/infestor (c) 7:30 roach/ling all-in Scouting the difference between (a) and (c) I find is hard, so always prepare for the 7:30min all-in with more sentries/cannons. If it doesnt come by 8mins, then I put down my robo/TC. But doing this means I wont get a WP or observer scout until 9:30min (?). Then I can either tech colossi (if roach/hydra) or blink/HT (if muta/infestor) but its this point I struggle to decide cos I dont have enough info from scouting yet. So want to know how do you effectively scout and respond to zerg 2-base play?
getting out 2 zealots is actually a really strong play and I recommend playing around with it. you will probably have to get your core a little bit later because it's a lot of minerals to spend so early, but as long as you start your core around the 5 min mark you should be able to get wg done to sync up with your additional gates.
the 2 zealots will guarantee you clearing the tower(s) unless they made a bunch of speedlings, and if they made a bunch of speedlings against your ffe, theres a good chance they are trying to all in you off of 2 base with roach/bane/drop/nydus bs, so warp in sentries defensively if you have time, add cannons. your 2 sentries out of your gateway are extremely important here. don't get too greedy!
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On December 06 2011 09:02 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2011 07:59 bankai wrote:On December 02 2011 14:39 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 09:39 bankai wrote:On December 02 2011 08:51 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 07:51 bankai wrote:On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window. I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass. DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too, Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early? Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop. Some thoughts on this from an experienced player? Was thinking, does taking an early third ourselves work against 3-base roach (zerg taking an early third)? I haven't really played much of the really early WP+DT stuff, but I often open similarly up until the robo+twilight+zealot harass. I think getting blink and collossi is a much easier way to play. You can easily take a 3rd against 3 base roach at around 13 minutes, with 2 collossi out. Dealing with the mutas that often follow the roach opening just requires a good sense of when mutas will come. Make 1-2 cannons and move blink stalkers into position at that time. Like canopus said, you can't kill their 3rd base even with a close pylon if they have roaches up in time. However, you can pull back your 7-8 zealots without losing many, and warp in 4 stalkers to force even more roaches+lings. Unless they make a lot of speedlings in addition to the roaches, you should get away without losing many units. Even if they have enough speedlings to catch your units, I think the harass is almost always worth it economically. Thanks for your advice Time! So on your 2nd paragraph, are you saying against 3-base roach you should still go ahead with the 8zealot pressure, but just wait for the next 4 stalker warp-in...in other words, still focus on denying their 3rd, but do it with an additional 4 stalkers? Just trying to clear in my head the overall strategy against 3base roach - it sounds like the only way to play against this is to deny their third. If not, then we are way behind economically. And taking our own 3rd is not feasible cos they can roach spam shortly afterwards....is that correct? My experience is that the bolded is not true. The stalkers aren't really there to deny the 3rd, they're mostly there to scare the zerg into overproducing units and maybe kill a roach or two. I don't think you should ever be able to kill the 3rd base against a player who makes roaches, the purpose is just to force non-drones. It is acceptable for your 3rd to be placed later than theirs as long as you are keeping up on workers and being cost-effective with harass. Great thanks again Time! Alej - any luck on that 2zealot scouting idea (page 3 of this thread)? Have been using this build a lot lately, and have to say it works wonders against the early third style but still having problems scouting 2-base play. From what i can see, they can do broadly one of three things: (a) Take a later (and safer) third with roaches or roach/hydra after getting saturation at their 2-bases (b) Mutas or ling/infestor (c) 7:30 roach/ling all-in Scouting the difference between (a) and (c) I find is hard, so always prepare for the 7:30min all-in with more sentries/cannons. If it doesnt come by 8mins, then I put down my robo/TC. But doing this means I wont get a WP or observer scout until 9:30min (?). Then I can either tech colossi (if roach/hydra) or blink/HT (if muta/infestor) but its this point I struggle to decide cos I dont have enough info from scouting yet. So want to know how do you effectively scout and respond to zerg 2-base play? getting out 2 zealots is actually a really strong play and I recommend playing around with it. you will probably have to get your core a little bit later because it's a lot of minerals to spend so early, but as long as you start your core around the 5 min mark you should be able to get wg done to sync up with your additional gates. the 2 zealots will guarantee you clearing the tower(s) unless they made a bunch of speedlings, and if they made a bunch of speedlings against your ffe, theres a good chance they are trying to all in you off of 2 base with roach/bane/drop/nydus bs, so warp in sentries defensively if you have time, add cannons. your 2 sentries out of your gateway are extremely important here. don't get too greedy!
great to hear your opinion Alej!
Not sure if u read Noumena's thread about WP harass, but basically he opens 1 gas to get earlier zealots and a robo, then later the 4xGWs. What are your thoughts on getting a later 2nd gas to allow for the 2zealots and Core earlier? The only negative i can think of is that it delays your +1 attack coming due to less gas.
Also, its my understanding that to scout 2-base play, you need to scout them at around the 8-8:30min mark. How do you do this? The 2 zealot scout is more for scouting 1base vs 2base play, and finding the possible early third right?
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So the counter to this build, from the zerg perspective, would be to go for a fast third into 3 base roaches? I assume that if the zerg were to do so, that it would be advisable for the protoss to get immorts? Forgive me if that is inappropriate, I'm just assuming that the protoss would not go any other route with his gas and robo time, simply because of how hard 4-5 immorts rape roaches, even w/o FF.
However, as a zerg, if I am facing a 6 gate robo on 2 bases, then I'll make roaches, but get infestors. Granted, it takes a while, but if the roaches can stall long enough for energy upgrade to finish, then the fungals can do a pretty decent amount of damage to the immort shields, as well as preventing blink micro. Or hell, I might even get hydras to capitalize on the lack of coli.
Then I'm assuming the toss knows how to play, so he gets HT and expands. At this point, I know that I'm lagging behind, so I might provoke a base trade with nydus. If you go along with it, then we trade sides of the map and I get back to three bases before you finish clearing out my others. After which I take the offensive and try to kill you before you get support bay up. If you don't go with it and fall back to kill the worm, then I capitalize on my free macro time and get more shit.
As a toss, how would you respond at this point? I realize that it's a regular 6 gate when you get into mid-game, however it is slightly more vulnerable to a 6 pool. But, if you're on a map when FFE is common (all of them), then most zergs won't 6/7 pool. So, I give my stamp of approval to any toss wanting to try this out.
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None of the replay links are working for me, I'm curious if anyone esle has been having trouble as well.
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On December 09 2011 03:13 Drolla wrote:
None of the replay links are working for me, I'm curious if anyone esle has been having trouble as well.
Go watch Hero's MLG and Dreamhack VODs. He has been using this build a lot.
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Thanx dude! Always love your guides
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I really suck at scouting out the baneling bust. T_T
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Seems like the replays are wrong. I got matches vs Spades and some other terrans and toss :/
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On December 09 2011 05:58 DGenerate wrote:
Seems like the replays are wrong. I got matches vs Spades and some other terrans and toss :/
Thanks for making me dl and watch 5 of my own replays :p
All of the replays are uploaded correctly. I will be uploading more soon, too.
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All of the images are shot?
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edit: pics should be taken care of
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On December 09 2011 10:44 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2011 05:58 DGenerate wrote:
Seems like the replays are wrong. I got matches vs Spades and some other terrans and toss :/ Thanks for making me dl and watch 5 of my own replays :p All of the replays are uploaded correctly. I will be uploading more soon, too.
Damn my bad man. I think I mixed up my folders. Nothing to see here, move along citizens!
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First of all. Thanks for the build Alej. I started using it yesterday and though I've only done it five or six times I'm starting to understand the strengths and weakneses. I have some questions I'd like to ask you.
1. What is your prefered way to play out the DT follow up to the intial Zealot harass?
I feel that Warp Prism DT drop with a Lair snipe is kind of "iffy" so I guess just sending 3 DTs out, one to each base, is the best way to go? I understand that it's situational but have you tried to do a two pronged attack with like a Lair snipe + Zealots at his third? Does it work out? I'm having some problems making the DT play effective apart from the fact that it allows me to take a third whilst harassing. In general it's the fact that you force him to make lings and/or roaches with your first 8 Zealots and since they all seem to have Hive in time for the Warp Prism play it's hard to really do any severe damage I feel. I think I've tried 3 DT - one each base twice and the snipe Lair 4 times. I just really want your oppinion on what seems to be the best way to play it out.
2. What do you feel is an ideal timing to get your Templars Archives(TA)?
I've managed to lose some games due to forgetting the TA and then not having the AoE damage needed in the midgame to deal with mass Roaches. That's obviously an error from my part but I would like to have some sort of advice that I can try to incorporate in to the build. Like do you get the TA as you take your 3d?
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Lately I've been forgoing the dt harass and trying to get a more solid mid game with an earlier 3rd base. it's really hard to do this if they opened up safely with 3 base roach, as a good zerg will take a fast 4th and tech to whatever ungodly zerg comp they can get to safely. but if you manage to do a little chip damage--killing off a lot of drones, forcing lings, or even getting the hatch, i recommend going up to 6 gates, getting blink and some immortals and have a foundation of 6-8 sentries (shouldn't be an issue since you are pooling off of 4 gases during your zealot push(es) and going for ht once you get your 3rd nexus down.
some good kor tosses get their ht tech started even sooner, but i fear faster muta switches and want to get blink/stalkers out instead of making that big gas investment much earlier. the way i've been dealing with muta switches is: blink stalkers now, ht storm later--i haven't had much problems dealing with the initial flock of muta but you will die to it if you don't get ht EVENTUALLY.. and then have 1-2 at each base and still lose your main + nat nexi in base trade :p
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awesome guide, this will help my poor pvz loads. thanks!
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On December 11 2011 08:45 Alejandrisha wrote:
Lately I've been forgoing the dt harass and trying to get a more solid mid game with an earlier 3rd base. it's really hard to do this if they opened up safely with 3 base roach, as a good zerg will take a fast 4th and tech to whatever ungodly zerg comp they can get to safely. but if you manage to do a little chip damage--killing off a lot of drones, forcing lings, or even getting the hatch, i recommend going up to 6 gates, getting blink and some immortals and have a foundation of 6-8 sentries (shouldn't be an issue since you are pooling off of 4 gases during your zealot push(es) and going for ht once you get your 3rd nexus down.
some good kor tosses get their ht tech started even sooner, but i fear faster muta switches and want to get blink/stalkers out instead of making that big gas investment much earlier. the way i've been dealing with muta switches is: blink stalkers now, ht storm later--i haven't had much problems dealing with the initial flock of muta but you will die to it if you don't get ht EVENTUALLY.. and then have 1-2 at each base and still lose your main + nat nexi in base trade :p
Sounds like a smart plan to me. I might try it out as well. Do you skip the Warp Prism harass altogether then or do you just make one and keep it on his side of the map and try to harass with some Zealot warp ins if he tries to move out and attack your third?
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Thanks a lot.
I've been having trouble with mid-game harass, and I feel as if the proxy pylons and warp prisms are hard to remember to do when there is so much macro going on.
I like your philosophy on this build, and I plan to implement it in my PvZs!
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On December 12 2011 02:33 Tekakan wrote:Show nested quote +On December 11 2011 08:45 Alejandrisha wrote:
Lately I've been forgoing the dt harass and trying to get a more solid mid game with an earlier 3rd base. it's really hard to do this if they opened up safely with 3 base roach, as a good zerg will take a fast 4th and tech to whatever ungodly zerg comp they can get to safely. but if you manage to do a little chip damage--killing off a lot of drones, forcing lings, or even getting the hatch, i recommend going up to 6 gates, getting blink and some immortals and have a foundation of 6-8 sentries (shouldn't be an issue since you are pooling off of 4 gases during your zealot push(es) and going for ht once you get your 3rd nexus down.
some good kor tosses get their ht tech started even sooner, but i fear faster muta switches and want to get blink/stalkers out instead of making that big gas investment much earlier. the way i've been dealing with muta switches is: blink stalkers now, ht storm later--i haven't had much problems dealing with the initial flock of muta but you will die to it if you don't get ht EVENTUALLY.. and then have 1-2 at each base and still lose your main + nat nexi in base trade :p Sounds like a smart plan to me. I might try it out as well. Do you skip the Warp Prism harass altogether then or do you just make one and keep it on his side of the map and try to harass with some Zealot warp ins if he tries to move out and attack your third?
If you can fit in the WP right after you finish your robo (if you have the mins.. I'm not sure how well this really works out as you're making str8 zealots at the time), then do that. I prefer to use the wp for a sentry drop since zealot drops after your pylon gets cleaned up by roaches don't really do much of anything, though that's not too bad since it's purely a mineral investment. after the zealot pressure, though, my robo is usually pumpin the shit out of immortals so i have at least 2 along with my 6-8 sentries to hold off a roach bust, which usually comes as you often force the z to over-make roaches in response to the zealot pressure (which is why you can't take your 3rd right away even if you get the hatch down if roaches are out.... we'll that's a lie i've seen herO do it while streaming but idk that's why he's probably the best pvz in the world atm).
once you have a strong enough sentry/immortal/whatever comp... usually like 6 stalkers at this point so if a muta switch comes you're not dead immediately... so that you are no longer afraid of a roach bust, you can take your 3rd and with good simcity at 3rd you should be safe. just always watch for the muta switch because that shit is trending right now.
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I'm loving 4gate agression so much right now in big map pvz, you can almost always kill their 3rd, and then the Z either does the smart thing and re-expands or tries to come kill you, but you can hold fine with blinkers/ffs/immortals and then warp in zels int heir main. Awesome.
I've found I feel safe taking my 3rd at ~11-14 minute mark.
If the guy goes muta, I like to go up to just go kill him, I like getting the +1 so lings aren't too big a problem.
If I kill the 3rd succesfully, I start making immortals right away, common response is a roach heavy counter.
Just my thoughts after a little while using this.
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On December 06 2011 09:02 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2011 07:59 bankai wrote:On December 02 2011 14:39 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 09:39 bankai wrote:On December 02 2011 08:51 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 07:51 bankai wrote:On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window. I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass. DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too, Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early? Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop. Some thoughts on this from an experienced player? Was thinking, does taking an early third ourselves work against 3-base roach (zerg taking an early third)? I haven't really played much of the really early WP+DT stuff, but I often open similarly up until the robo+twilight+zealot harass. I think getting blink and collossi is a much easier way to play. You can easily take a 3rd against 3 base roach at around 13 minutes, with 2 collossi out. Dealing with the mutas that often follow the roach opening just requires a good sense of when mutas will come. Make 1-2 cannons and move blink stalkers into position at that time. Like canopus said, you can't kill their 3rd base even with a close pylon if they have roaches up in time. However, you can pull back your 7-8 zealots without losing many, and warp in 4 stalkers to force even more roaches+lings. Unless they make a lot of speedlings in addition to the roaches, you should get away without losing many units. Even if they have enough speedlings to catch your units, I think the harass is almost always worth it economically. Thanks for your advice Time! So on your 2nd paragraph, are you saying against 3-base roach you should still go ahead with the 8zealot pressure, but just wait for the next 4 stalker warp-in...in other words, still focus on denying their 3rd, but do it with an additional 4 stalkers? Just trying to clear in my head the overall strategy against 3base roach - it sounds like the only way to play against this is to deny their third. If not, then we are way behind economically. And taking our own 3rd is not feasible cos they can roach spam shortly afterwards....is that correct? My experience is that the bolded is not true. The stalkers aren't really there to deny the 3rd, they're mostly there to scare the zerg into overproducing units and maybe kill a roach or two. I don't think you should ever be able to kill the 3rd base against a player who makes roaches, the purpose is just to force non-drones. It is acceptable for your 3rd to be placed later than theirs as long as you are keeping up on workers and being cost-effective with harass. Great thanks again Time! Alej - any luck on that 2zealot scouting idea (page 3 of this thread)? Have been using this build a lot lately, and have to say it works wonders against the early third style but still having problems scouting 2-base play. From what i can see, they can do broadly one of three things: (a) Take a later (and safer) third with roaches or roach/hydra after getting saturation at their 2-bases (b) Mutas or ling/infestor (c) 7:30 roach/ling all-in Scouting the difference between (a) and (c) I find is hard, so always prepare for the 7:30min all-in with more sentries/cannons. If it doesnt come by 8mins, then I put down my robo/TC. But doing this means I wont get a WP or observer scout until 9:30min (?). Then I can either tech colossi (if roach/hydra) or blink/HT (if muta/infestor) but its this point I struggle to decide cos I dont have enough info from scouting yet. So want to know how do you effectively scout and respond to zerg 2-base play? getting out 2 zealots is actually a really strong play and I recommend playing around with it. you will probably have to get your core a little bit later because it's a lot of minerals to spend so early, but as long as you start your core around the 5 min mark you should be able to get wg done to sync up with your additional gates. the 2 zealots will guarantee you clearing the tower(s) unless they made a bunch of speedlings, and if they made a bunch of speedlings against your ffe, theres a good chance they are trying to all in you off of 2 base with roach/bane/drop/nydus bs, so warp in sentries defensively if you have time, add cannons. your 2 sentries out of your gateway are extremely important here. don't get too greedy!
I like getting 2 zealots too, I get my cyber before 2nd zel however. The wg timing is too close to delay the core imho.
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On December 12 2011 05:13 Oreo7 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 06 2011 09:02 Alejandrisha wrote:On December 06 2011 07:59 bankai wrote:On December 02 2011 14:39 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 09:39 bankai wrote:On December 02 2011 08:51 iSTime wrote:On December 02 2011 07:51 bankai wrote:On December 01 2011 08:27 bankai wrote:On November 28 2011 16:11 Canopus wrote:
I'm a mid masters protoss and have been playing this build for about a week. I read your response to 3 base roach zerg and it sounds grimm. I'm noticing a competent zerg can prevent you from killing the 3rd (even with a very close pylon), and your listed response is warp prism harras with dts and zealots to try and snipe buildings. I don't like this response because if the zerg doesn't make mistakes your going to lose. Your basically hoping for the zerg to screw up. Have you found any other responses that work? I've won a few games by responding with a very fast 3rd, but I feel as though a strong player will kill you in that window. I am also having problems with 3 base roach. On maps like Meta where the third is close, the roaches can easily walk over and deny the zealot harass. DT has worked to some extent but sometimes they blindly drop spores and deny that too, Anyone know how to play against 3-base roach where the 3rd is early? Also, how do you know when its safe to take a third yourself against this? I have faced so many roach into muta transitions, its really hard to deal with. I want to go Colossus against Roach, but then Muta would be hard to stop. Some thoughts on this from an experienced player? Was thinking, does taking an early third ourselves work against 3-base roach (zerg taking an early third)? I haven't really played much of the really early WP+DT stuff, but I often open similarly up until the robo+twilight+zealot harass. I think getting blink and collossi is a much easier way to play. You can easily take a 3rd against 3 base roach at around 13 minutes, with 2 collossi out. Dealing with the mutas that often follow the roach opening just requires a good sense of when mutas will come. Make 1-2 cannons and move blink stalkers into position at that time. Like canopus said, you can't kill their 3rd base even with a close pylon if they have roaches up in time. However, you can pull back your 7-8 zealots without losing many, and warp in 4 stalkers to force even more roaches+lings. Unless they make a lot of speedlings in addition to the roaches, you should get away without losing many units. Even if they have enough speedlings to catch your units, I think the harass is almost always worth it economically. Thanks for your advice Time! So on your 2nd paragraph, are you saying against 3-base roach you should still go ahead with the 8zealot pressure, but just wait for the next 4 stalker warp-in...in other words, still focus on denying their 3rd, but do it with an additional 4 stalkers? Just trying to clear in my head the overall strategy against 3base roach - it sounds like the only way to play against this is to deny their third. If not, then we are way behind economically. And taking our own 3rd is not feasible cos they can roach spam shortly afterwards....is that correct? My experience is that the bolded is not true. The stalkers aren't really there to deny the 3rd, they're mostly there to scare the zerg into overproducing units and maybe kill a roach or two. I don't think you should ever be able to kill the 3rd base against a player who makes roaches, the purpose is just to force non-drones. It is acceptable for your 3rd to be placed later than theirs as long as you are keeping up on workers and being cost-effective with harass. Great thanks again Time! Alej - any luck on that 2zealot scouting idea (page 3 of this thread)? Have been using this build a lot lately, and have to say it works wonders against the early third style but still having problems scouting 2-base play. From what i can see, they can do broadly one of three things: (a) Take a later (and safer) third with roaches or roach/hydra after getting saturation at their 2-bases (b) Mutas or ling/infestor (c) 7:30 roach/ling all-in Scouting the difference between (a) and (c) I find is hard, so always prepare for the 7:30min all-in with more sentries/cannons. If it doesnt come by 8mins, then I put down my robo/TC. But doing this means I wont get a WP or observer scout until 9:30min (?). Then I can either tech colossi (if roach/hydra) or blink/HT (if muta/infestor) but its this point I struggle to decide cos I dont have enough info from scouting yet. So want to know how do you effectively scout and respond to zerg 2-base play? getting out 2 zealots is actually a really strong play and I recommend playing around with it. you will probably have to get your core a little bit later because it's a lot of minerals to spend so early, but as long as you start your core around the 5 min mark you should be able to get wg done to sync up with your additional gates. the 2 zealots will guarantee you clearing the tower(s) unless they made a bunch of speedlings, and if they made a bunch of speedlings against your ffe, theres a good chance they are trying to all in you off of 2 base with roach/bane/drop/nydus bs, so warp in sentries defensively if you have time, add cannons. your 2 sentries out of your gateway are extremely important here. don't get too greedy! I like getting 2 zealots too, I get my cyber before 2nd zel however. The wg timing is too close to delay the core imho.
yeah never delay your core for a zealot unless you absolutely have to. i'm not sure if my 2 zealots always come at the same timing every game but what you have said sounds about right. some games you get your gases a little bit later or sooner depending on how many probes you have around the map, when you put up your gate like if it was after forge before cannon or after forge and cannon; sometimes i only have probes on one of the gases for a bit because my mineral income is slacking which might help you out if you can't squeeze out the 2nd zealot while getting everything else up with constant probes from both nexus, but you still end up having +1 as your 4 zealots get to the third.
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I forgot to ask you about Killers version of this openings. Is that the +1 Zealot + a SG for one or some Void Rays instead of DT tech? I saw Axslav do something similar on his stream.
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killer will skip the +1 and use the gas bank from getting 2 before core for an sg upon completion of core. the faster gases ensure that he can continue to use 1cb/phoenix without ever running dry, though it may seem like he has too much once the SG completes. this style usually will delay the adding of gates (and thus WG research since your cb's are going towards phoenix) as a result of expensive phoenix production. that also leaves you more open to 2 base busts, but against anything else it's pretty damn strong. it's just a matter of sniffing it out as with any other ffe transition.
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Thank you for topic and replays.
Few questions though, just to be sure...
If I don't scout fast third with my probe(who made proxy pylon), do you opt for robotics or stargate(in case of 2base roach allin).
If you can't see is units, what is the best way to scout his strat on 2 base? You opt for stargate and voidray + phoenix, or just go robo obs?
Thanks.
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On December 12 2011 16:50 whereismymind wrote:
Thank you for topic and replays.
Few questions though, just to be sure...
If I don't scout fast third with my probe(who made proxy pylon), do you opt for robotics or stargate(in case of 2base roach allin).
If you can't see is units, what is the best way to scout his strat on 2 base? You opt for stargate and voidray + phoenix, or just go robo obs?
Thanks.
I would like to know this as well! What to do when the Z stays longer on two bases, build defensive units (not all in), then get a slower third?
Should we continue to harass with dt and warp prism, all the while expanding behind?
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On December 14 2011 10:16 Quochobao wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2011 16:50 whereismymind wrote:
Thank you for topic and replays.
Few questions though, just to be sure...
If I don't scout fast third with my probe(who made proxy pylon), do you opt for robotics or stargate(in case of 2base roach allin).
If you can't see is units, what is the best way to scout his strat on 2 base? You opt for stargate and voidray + phoenix, or just go robo obs?
Thanks. I would like to know this as well! What to do when the Z stays longer on two bases, build defensive units (not all in), then get a slower third? Should we continue to harass with dt and warp prism, all the while expanding behind?
This has been my biggest question as well!
Many a time I have been so excited about following this build/gamestyle, its like im assuming a 3-base zerg when I later get crushed by simple 2-base attacks 
Some ideas I have so far to scout 2-base:
1) Scout with probe at 6min mark. If there is no third, assume some sorta 2-base play and put a robo down and one or two cannons at the front instead of the 3xGW at 6:30min (or 36 supply). The earlier robo means you can drop their base 8:30-9min and scout their tech. The extra 1-2cannons is just in-case of roach/ling all-in at 7:30min, or perhaps a later 10-12min roach/hydra push. Meanwhile I chrono more probes (instead of WG since im putting down my GWs later), put down 4 Gateways at 7:30ish, then a TC/2xGas at 8-8:30mins. To me, its ok to not rush on the WG research and focus on probes since they didnt go 3-base.
2) Go ahead with Alej's build exactly, but use the initial 4 zealots to attack their front. Based on the units they react with, you can guess what they are doing (e.g. lings/lots of spines = muta/infestor, roaches = roach, roach/hydra). The 2nd warp in, I get more sentries (instead of the 5th-8th zealot) and tech robo/TC slightly faster.
Alej - what do you think of my ideas???
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I could kiss you for writing this.
+ Show Spoiler +In all seriousness, this answers a lot of questions I was raging about not 6 hours ago. Thanks a bunch.
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I'm a zerg player and I'm sort of interested in how a toss is supposed to scout if I go roach/ling allin. It's more or less my goto strategy if a toss FFEs and they can't really scout it coming since I build 4 lings immediately when my pool goes up and park 2 of those outside of the opponents natural, no probe will leave that base alive. I mean sure, the toss scout MIGHT still be alive out on the map, but in general, I will do my best with my other two lings to clear the map of any probe/proxy pylons... and once I've got this 100% map control, how can the toss ever get a probe beyond their natural? (Map dependant of course, Xel'Naga has the backdoor with bushes etc, but stuff like Shakuras, there's just no way to get a probe alive from that ramp.)
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You can usually get a good read on what the zerg is doing by his gas intake. Click on his geyser and if he has less than ~2400 gas left then he is likely going to do a 2 base pressure build, so you can add cannons/sentries as needed. If he stops mining at 2400, he is likely taking a fast third expo.
However, it is important to keep checking and keep the map in mind. One zerg stopped mining on shattered temple when my probe came in and put them back on once he drove my scout out, then went roach/ling on me, which is always a likely zerg opening on maps such as shattered temple, xel naga, and tal darim, where rocks block a quick third.
I just started with this build, so I don't know if this is accurate or not, but would it make sense to avoid doing this builds and likely two-base zerg maps? If i get hallucination immediately after wg finishes does it take away from any other aspects of the build?
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On December 14 2011 13:40 bankai wrote:Some ideas I have so far to scout 2-base: 1) Scout with probe at 6min mark. If there is no third, assume some sorta 2-base play and put a robo down and one or two cannons at the front instead of the 3xGW at 6:30min (or 36 supply). The earlier robo means you can drop their base 8:30-9min and scout their tech. The extra 1-2cannons is just in-case of roach/ling all-in at 7:30min, or perhaps a later 10-12min roach/hydra push. Meanwhile I chrono more probes (instead of WG since im putting down my GWs later), put down 4 Gateways at 7:30ish, then a TC/2xGas at 8-8:30mins. To me, its ok to not rush on the WG research and focus on probes since they didnt go 3-base. 2) Go ahead with Alej's build exactly, but use the initial 4 zealots to attack their front. Based on the units they react with, you can guess what they are doing (e.g. lings/lots of spines = muta/infestor, roaches = roach, roach/hydra). The 2nd warp in, I get more sentries (instead of the 5th-8th zealot) and tech robo/TC slightly faster. Alej - what do you think of my ideas???
Just a plat player here, but what I usually do is chrono out two zealots, use one for the block and send the other out to bait lings camping below my ramp into cannon range or take the towers. If the zerg seems v determined to clear out this zealot, I walk the second zealot into his natural at about 6 minutes while chronoing out a few sentries and a stalker. This zealot will encounter any roaches rallied to your doorstep, giving you some time to put up a bazillion cannons. Once warp gates are done, you can poke again with 4 zealots splitting 2 to run into the main if possible.
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Alej or any other masters + Protosses: What do you think about just warping in zealots/units at home and using those units to try to defend an early third base, in the event that you can't get a proxi up by their third or it looks like the attack would fall flat?
Would it be good to spend the money that would go on the next round of units on extra gateways or even more units instead, esp immortals vs 3 base roach where you can't kill the third?
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On December 20 2011 07:25 charliexjustice wrote:
Alej or any other masters + Protosses: What do you think about just warping in zealots/units at home and using those units to try to defend an early third base, in the event that you can't get a proxi up by their third or it looks like the attack would fall flat?
Would it be good to spend the money that would go on the next round of units on extra gateways or even more units instead, esp immortals vs 3 base roach where you can't kill the third?
the zealots come at a pretty critical time in that if you don't put on pressure at that marker, you have cut your 3/4 gases for a bit of time, and you have used your CB's on your WG research instead of probes so that you have cut econ in a way to get up your gates; if the zerg doesn't take any pressure at this time, he is free to drone very hard off of 3 hatches and probably take a 4th as you begin your 3rd. even if you can't do a whole lot of damage, you are at least forcing units other than drones at this awkward timing for Z. he doesn't want to make units until he has started lair.
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On December 20 2011 08:22 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2011 07:25 charliexjustice wrote:
Alej or any other masters + Protosses: What do you think about just warping in zealots/units at home and using those units to try to defend an early third base, in the event that you can't get a proxi up by their third or it looks like the attack would fall flat?
Would it be good to spend the money that would go on the next round of units on extra gateways or even more units instead, esp immortals vs 3 base roach where you can't kill the third?
the zealots come at a pretty critical time in that if you don't put on pressure at that marker, you have cut your 3/4 gases for a bit of time, and you have used your CB's on your WG research instead of probes so that you have cut econ in a way to get up your gates; if the zerg doesn't take any pressure at this time, he is free to drone very hard off of 3 hatches and probably take a 4th as you begin your 3rd. even if you can't do a whole lot of damage, you are at least forcing units other than drones at this awkward timing for Z. he doesn't want to make units until he has started lair.
Thank you very much for explaining that. What if instead of chronoboosting WG, I cb'ed probes and got earlier gases, but still did the initial scouting to avoid dying to allins? Is there a way to use this FFE opener in a non timing attack way, or should I just scrap it altogether if I want a faster third?
I was thinking of getting a robo at the same time as the gates, in addition to CB on probes and faster gases.
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On another note, you and several other prominent protoss players have stated here that you exclusively FFE vs zerg. What do you do against randoms? By the time you scout them being zerg, it would be too late to FFE
I was especially having this problem on tal drim, where anything but 4gate loses in PVP and almost anything but FFE falls behind economically in pvz.
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On December 20 2011 08:38 charliexjustice wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2011 08:22 Alejandrisha wrote:On December 20 2011 07:25 charliexjustice wrote:
Alej or any other masters + Protosses: What do you think about just warping in zealots/units at home and using those units to try to defend an early third base, in the event that you can't get a proxi up by their third or it looks like the attack would fall flat?
Would it be good to spend the money that would go on the next round of units on extra gateways or even more units instead, esp immortals vs 3 base roach where you can't kill the third?
the zealots come at a pretty critical time in that if you don't put on pressure at that marker, you have cut your 3/4 gases for a bit of time, and you have used your CB's on your WG research instead of probes so that you have cut econ in a way to get up your gates; if the zerg doesn't take any pressure at this time, he is free to drone very hard off of 3 hatches and probably take a 4th as you begin your 3rd. even if you can't do a whole lot of damage, you are at least forcing units other than drones at this awkward timing for Z. he doesn't want to make units until he has started lair. Thank you very much for explaining that. What if instead of chronoboosting WG, I cb'ed probes and got earlier gases, but still did the initial scouting to avoid dying to allins? Is there a way to use this FFE opener in a non timing attack way, or should I just scrap it altogether if I want a faster third? I was thinking of getting a robo at the same time as the gates, in addition to CB on probes and faster gases.
then you're just doing a pretty standard ffe with no pressure, and the point of this build is to move away from that
edit: vs randoms i'll open with no wall and go into 2 gate fe most likely
edit edit: vs randoms on tda i qq hard but you still don't need to wall off with your first pylon; it plays out similarly to other maps except that you need to throw up a shit load of stuff in your nat to keep you safe when speed finishes which is really fucking annoying
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Thank you very much for your response. I realize I was getting a little off topic there, sorry about that.
I actually just decided to veto TDA. Kind of a shame, minus pvp/pvr it seems like a pretty cool map.
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On December 20 2011 18:52 charliexjustice wrote:
Thank you very much for your response. I realize I was getting a little off topic there, sorry about that.
I actually just decided to veto TDA. Kind of a shame, minus pvp/pvr it seems like a pretty cool map.
yep i do enjoy a nice pvt on tda, though recently terrans have been doing stupid builds on it because we assume they will 1 rax fe every time :p
any time!
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This thread is a goldmine and I'm just a z user. Thank you!
By the way what is a stronger zerg unit combo, roaches into mutas or roach hydra corruptor or maybe something else?
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On December 21 2011 01:15 beetlelisk wrote:
This thread is a goldmine and I'm just a z user. Thank you!
By the way what is a stronger zerg unit combo, roaches into mutas or roach hydra corruptor or maybe something else?
roach into muta seems to be the best way to go out of 3 base roach. i hate to say this because it's really a bastard to deal with that muta flock.
roach-muta into pure muta and then eventually bl's with some infestors once you expand a shit ton off of the map control your mutas give you.
it's a style that lends itself to a lot of 50 minute games, but i think it puts the z user ahead as long as he plays it at all correctly. the proper response from p is to hunker down to fend off muta on 3 base while getting storm tech up and taking a 4th and eventually mounting the death push, leaving ht's at his mining bases while saccing his main and nat and re-establishing infrastructure by and by. if they get impatient it's a free win for you via base trade.
good luck, and go fuck yourself :D
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I think going nexus first without scouting is madness, wouldnt EVER suggest it to anybody as a strategy. You only go nexus first when you scout zerg in the first position and he has not started pool yet imo. Also i think the biggest weakness of this build is lack of scouting because you have no haluci, late obs, no air and you cant rely on your zealots to scout
Anyway are there any replays of Hero doing this build? I would love to see a pro do it cause i like the thoughts behind this!
thanks for the guide!!
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I've been having no shortage of PvZ woes, so a well-mapped FFE is a nice read. Thanks.
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On December 21 2011 18:30 RealRook wrote:
Anyway are there any replays of Hero doing this build? I would love to see a pro do it cause i like the thoughts behind this!
thanks for the guide!!
No, but Alej provided a link to HerO's stream. HerO pretty much does some kind of variation of this build.
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Fantastic guide I can't wait to try it out! I have a question though. What is the best way to deal with big ling bane plays with this style? I imagine eventually you want to get a big gateway archon ht army, but how can you maintain enough map presence to take a third if he has a decent number of banes to deal with your zealot attacks?
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On December 22 2011 13:35 mrperfect1357 wrote:
Fantastic guide I can't wait to try it out! I have a question though. What is the best way to deal with big ling bane plays with this style? I imagine eventually you want to get a big gateway archon ht army, but how can you maintain enough map presence to take a third if he has a decent number of banes to deal with your zealot attacks?
force fields and collossus. ling/bling dosen't give zerg that much map control imo. just make sure if you're pressuring that you've got some sight ahead with an obs and be careful of bane drops.
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Alej can we get your professional tip on how to opt if zerg doesn't take third base.. I mean. Many times I can't scout 2base roach allin, because he is supernatural at denying.. If you don't scout third, do you immediately put additonal 2-3 cannons and put robo instead 3 gates or what do you do?
Thanks.
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On December 25 2011 05:07 whereismymind wrote:
Alej can we get your professional tip on how to opt if zerg doesn't take third base.. I mean. Many times I can't scout 2base roach allin, because he is supernatural at denying.. If you don't scout third, do you immediately put additonal 2-3 cannons and put robo instead 3 gates or what do you do?
Thanks.
if my pylon probe doesn't scout the third at ~7:30, it might already be too late. i've had success with adding cannons, but also with utilizing the 2 zealots. if they can deny that poke with speedlings (they have enough to, i'm talking 8+), they're most likely up to something. if i don't see a 3rd with both of these conditions, i warp in sentries defensively and try to figure out what's up. usually cannons won't get up in time, but it's good practice to put up 2 in very defensive spots to use in conjunction with micro'd stalkers.
alternatively, they might be have been planning to take a later 3rd and teching, so i get a twilight up and use obs to figure out what it is. you get the robo relatively quickly (after your 4 gates) so you have pretty much standard observer timing.
also i figured the replays didn't have enough mothership
http://sc2rep.com/replays/download?id=16869
this is vs greedy 3rd with roaches not quite in time.. pretty much ideal for what we're doing. i delay the gases just a tad and it seems to really help with 4g timing
edit: and here's a replay that is more along the lines of what your saying:
http://sc2rep.com/replays/download?id=16870
except it's an inbase proxy hatch that I don't scout until I can see the creep.. but still no 3rd and some kind of aggression
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On December 25 2011 18:29 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2011 05:07 whereismymind wrote:
Alej can we get your professional tip on how to opt if zerg doesn't take third base.. I mean. Many times I can't scout 2base roach allin, because he is supernatural at denying.. If you don't scout third, do you immediately put additonal 2-3 cannons and put robo instead 3 gates or what do you do?
Thanks. if my pylon probe doesn't scout the third at ~7:30, it might already be too late. i've had success with adding cannons, but also with utilizing the 2 zealots. if they can deny that poke with speedlings (they have enough to, i'm talking 8+), they're most likely up to something. if i don't see a 3rd with both of these conditions, i warp in sentries defensively and try to figure out what's up. usually cannons won't get up in time, but it's good practice to put up 2 in very defensive spots to use in conjunction with micro'd stalkers. alternatively, they might be have been planning to take a later 3rd and teching, so i get a twilight up and use obs to figure out what it is. you get the robo relatively quickly (after your 4 gates) so you have pretty much standard observer timing. also i figured the replays didn't have enough mothership http://sc2rep.com/replays/download?id=16869this is vs greedy 3rd with roaches not quite in time.. pretty much ideal for what we're doing. i delay the gases just a tad and it seems to really help with 4g timing edit: and here's a replay that is more along the lines of what your saying: http://sc2rep.com/replays/download?id=16870except it's an inbase proxy hatch that I don't scout until I can see the creep.. but still no 3rd and some kind of aggression
Would you please post an example of you responding to 1) hatch cancel roach all in and 2) 2 base roach ling all in? I guess this is not so much unique to your build but a problem of all FFE -- but it would be really really helpful.
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don't have any of those atm. but will post if it happens
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Alej: What do you think about a Kiwikakish variant on the +1 timing attack, where you go gate core gate or gate gate core, and produce 6 or so zealots out of them while taking only 1 gas, taking all the rest simultaneously around when your zealots move out. This would seem to allow you to push earlier/about the same time, spend more chronoboosts on probes, allow you to be more assertive against a zerg hell bent on denying the early 2 zealot scout, and help bash down rocks. The presence of two gates also would help against some kind of all innish baneling/nydus/roach bust. The additional probes on minerals would also help putting up cannons and such.
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Wow, <3 HerO! And this thread, a good write up, there are so many good guides out there, and i agree with what RealRook said about Nexus first, i think that is really gimmicky, because if you got 6-7-8 pooled, i think that'd be a complete autoloss, i mean, you could get lucky, but zergs are learning not to hatch before pool in ZvP now, because you'll just get cannoned, and a lot of them just 6 pool lol. Great read though, thank you Alejandrisha!
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haha yes i've been putting down the forge if i don't get the scout lately, though i haven't seen 6pools in forever. a lot of 11 pools but mostly 14 pool (or 15?) with no gas
heres a sneaky replay
http://drop.sc/82669
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here's one vs 2 base roach aggression! it finally happened!
alejP v mkengynZ
if you scout that he's still mining gas past 2400, get some cannons and a few stalkers to micro. also re rally your nat nexus to your main minerals and send all the probes to mine in your main. i lose a few needlessly. also there was no need to push in after i killed the nat; i got greedy. should have taken my third and teched happily.
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I've been trying to learn what to do to prevent roach into muta into roach, having felt unable to apply any early pressure at all that wasn't simply throwing away minerals. The zealot pressure I will try.
Having said that, I watched the recorded games on Hero's page and really didn't see him being very successful. This was particularly true on maps with a rock-less gold that the zerg could take early (metalopolis for example), where Hero was mercilessly steamrolled by exactly this kind of build (roach or ling into muta harass, then both together. He was never able to secure a third. Just as he got the immortals to hold the line against the roaches, in come the muta. Not enough gas for sentries AND templar AND immortals off two base, all of which seem required. It was extremely frustrating to watch.
Even on maps without a quick gold for Z, this strategy of anything-into-muta-harass seemed to work. The one time it didn't was when hero managed to get pylon to survive inside the zerg base until the dark shrine was up.
I am yet to see or read any strategy that gives me confidence against a Z doing this kind of muta + ground army dual pressure build if the Z doesn't make any silly mistakes, even when P plays extremely well, as Hero obviously does.
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Just a question - What do you do with this build if you witness an EXTREMELY early third? Like one that is placed immediately after the Nat expansion?
What I've been doing is attempting to send a probe to the third covered by my first zealot and throw down a pylon and cannon behind the mineral line, but this seems extremely vulnerable to the first few lings scouting my probe and killing it. If I miss this cannon, I have absolutely no early game plan since the +1 Zealot poke can be deferred by a few roaches before they can actively damage the third.
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Strong build, definitely will be trying this out with the double cannon coverage
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On November 22 2011 13:17 Alejandrisha wrote:Trying to make this shorter and more concise than usual. Intro+ Show Spoiler +This play is adapted from watching HerO's and Killer's stream. Killer does a similar opening but tends to use it as a stargate opener, with his first 150 gas going straight to stargate upon the completion of the core. I've seen HerO use a similar style, but his FFE tends to transition into a 4gate +1 zealot push into the third base which has a massive variety of transitions that gives the protoss a significant amount of options heading into the midgame, something they feel they have not had before. This guide will explore only the latter style.
When players hear or see protoss players have success with warp prisms, they often just try to force a warp prism into their build instead of using a new build that allows us of the full potential of the WP. I see this as a build that does exactly that- you get a robo early up enough while being able to pressure early on and still be able to afford sentries and then even DTs to continue the pressure with drop play. The exact FFE build you will use in a particular game will vary dependent on the map. Here are several different build orders for the various maps (depending upon natural expansion) Two Cannon Coverage+ Show Spoiler +On maps like Metal, Xel'Naga and Shattered Temple, you might want to consider placing two cannons; one to protect the ramp and one to protect the outermost patches.
Nexus First (I will provide Forge first afterward)
9 Pylon
15/16 Nexus (15 for 15 scout, 16 for 9 [pylon] scout)
15/16 Forge(15 for 15 scout, 16 for 9 [pylon] scout)
17 Pylon
18 Cannon (or Gateway if you scout him first and see no early pool, or even manage to block a hatchery with a pylon to force lings to stay at the nat)
18 2nd Cannon or Gateway
18 2nd Cannon or Gateway (2nd probe scout; hide it in a convenient location to proxy a pylon by the zerg's most likely 3rd)
With constant probe production from both nexuses, you'll be able to get your gases down at about 22 food. Take both of them
You'll be able to afford your core at about 26 supply. Make sure you get this down as soon as possible.
Add a zealot to hold off the ling run-by if your wall isn't complete or the distance between your choke and the ramp is small.
Begin +1 weapons with your first 100 gas
CB WG research for its duration
At about 35 food, your core will be done and you will be able to afford (in terms of time and money) two sentries before WG research is done if you manage CB energy efficiently.
Shortly after, your minerals will begin to accrue. Don't CB your probes too much or you won't be able to afford appropriately timed gateways nor will you be able to afford constant chronoboost on WG research. At about 36 supply, you will be able to afford 3 gateways. Make sure they go down around the same time for convenience when you are transforming them.
At this point, you should have 1-2 probes hidden some where on his side of the map, or if not at least some where close to the center, unless the zerg scouted flawlessly. You can afford as many proxy pylons as you need to ensure a warp-in, as the rest of your spending will be very gas-intensive, excluding the actual zealots.
Upon the completion of WG research, warp-in as close to the zerg's third as possible (if you scout one with a probe, gun for that location. If you scout no third, add a cannon or 2 and try to probe-scout for a roach or baneling all in and warp in sentries at home instead of zealots afar. For now, we will assume the zerg has a third.
Once you begin the three additional gates, you can add your 2 additional gases and your robo. You will still be able to afford your first zealot warpin for 400 mins and will get a leg up on your tech. Soon thereafter, go ahead and get a twlight council and 1-2 additional gateways. You should make sure you are able to warp-in at least 3 more zealots when your WG cool down is finished to continue rallying to the 3rd base of the zerg.
FFE
9 Pylon (scout)
13 Forge (if you don't scout him first; time your 2nd chronoboost so that you can get the forge down on 13 while maintaining constant probe production)
17 Nexus
18 Gateway/Cannon
18 Gateway/Cannon
Follow the Nexus First build from here; you will have a few less probes but you should still hold the same general build.
16 Nexus with pylon scout
9 Pylon (scout)
16 Nexus (scout // 16 if you pylon scouted)
16 Forge
17 Pylon (optional; can also be used to block hatchery)
17/18 Gateway if you scouted him and can put it down without any worries of an early pool. If you scout an early pool or you haven't yet scouted him, get a cannon first.
20 both gases
15 Nexus with no pylon scout
9 Pylon
15 Nexus (Scout)
15 Forge
17 Pylon
18 Gateway/cannon
19/20 both gases
Use CB prudently; it's easy to run dry on minerals when CB'ing probes while trying to get your gases and core up on time.
FFE
On maps where you only need one cannon, but need to scout 3 different locations for early pools, you will use this build:
9 Pylon (scout)
13 Forge (scout)
17 Nexus
17 Cannon/GW (cannon if you haven't scouted him yet, GW if you have and see no early pool.)
If a 7pool is en route, finish your wall and block with probes until your cannon finishes if possible. If it is not possible to wall off in time, start a pylon in your main and warp a cannon into your mineral line. Do not build any additional structures at the natural. We will assume for now that no 7pool is coming.
17 Pylon
~19 Both gases
Grind out the above builds until you reach the point where you have warped in 8 zealots, a robotics and a twilight council until you are comfortable with this style. You are shooting for a flexible mid game. At this point, you have enough probes to cut soon and start preparing for a 2 base timing, depending on what it is; you can even cut the 3rd and 4th gas if you are going for an earlier timing, though I recommend using at least 3. You should have about 40 probes at this point. You have 4 gateways a robotics and a twilight, meanwhile the zerg is forced to make units at this awkward timing. If he is not opening roaches, or gets his roach tech too late, he will only have speedlings, queens, and spine crawlers to defend, so your zealots will be very cost effective as long as you keep them in large enough numbers. So while he is not droning freely, you can easily: - add sentries, as you will accumulate a sizable gas surplus with 4 gases while makeing zealots. You can use these defensively or aggressively in conjunction with a warp prism - add more gateways (bring yourself up to 5 or 6 unless your preparing for a GW all-in, in which 7-8 would be more appropriate) - begin immortal production if you are afraid of roaches - begin blink research if you are afraid of mutas - begin a dark shrine - begin a warp prism - begin a templar archives for archons or storm/feedback - begin plans to take a 3rd You can do any number of these, but if they are in fact opening roaches, it will be quite difficult to take a 3rd until you have enough sentries, immortals and stalkers to hold off a roach spam. Outside of that, you are extremely free to pick your tech route and expansion timing as long as you are scouting for muta or hydra switches. 3 Base roach+ Show Spoiler +This is considered the standard of the match-up I'd say. The 3rd base will either begin at a very early time once they see you have FFE'd, or at a later, safer time once they have established more saturation. Your success against this style will come from your ability to sneak probes and pylons around the map and from the timing of your opponent's roach warren timing.
Your proxy pylon does not need to be extremely close to the third, but it should be on their side of the map, beyond the towers, at least. Your main goal is to take down the hatchery, so when faced with slow roaches as you are rallying zealots, you should try to focus down the hatchery and ignore the roaches if need be.
If you manage to take down the hatchery, you are in a very good position, but should be wary of taking a greedy 3rd at the risk of roach spam. If your attack falls flat, you can transition into DT drops very easily and very quickly and come back into the game if you can manage to snipe hatcheries/important tech buildings with DT/zealot warp-ins off of six gateways. Taking a 3rd from here will be difficult if you cannot do damage with this, though. This style is becoming more common in ZvP as I'm sure you know. However, this push will come before mutas are out and the zerg will not have anything to defend outside of lings queens and spine crawlers. You are all but guaranteed a hatchery kill at the 3rd unless they hold it off with pure lings, in which case they will have very few drones afterwards. If they do not take their 3rd, you can pressure the natural because even though he hasn't extended to a 3rd, he still only has lings/queens/crawlers to defend. You really won't be able to differentiate between a muta build or an infestor build at this point, but you can gain that information with an observer or a warp prism while preparing yourself for mutas by warping in additional stalkers at home and researching blink. This will play out much like muta play will at the time of the push, but you can harass more freely with WP play after the opening. You can also get high templar out faster than you are used to because of your pressure and relative safety. Once you have established your third, roaches will no longer be very strong against your gas-heavy composition. Try to maintain distance between infestors and your army as possible with forcefields and make sure you have enough aoe to deal with infested terran spam. If you are out of forcefields, use storm on roaches since you can't negate their damage entirely. Immortals are pretty good Playing blindly, you will always get 2 sentries out before WG finishes. However, you will need to use your probe(s) on the map to sniff out these builds as they are coming to add additional cannons and sentries at home rather than warping in zealots aggressively. As in all FFE situations, your success here will come from your ability to scout effectively. But you are also somewhat safer against these because you finish your WG research and have additional warpgates available much faster. New Philosophy+ Show Spoiler +As always when you are learning a new style, you must adjust to the new options you have in terms of transitions later on. This build gets 2 gases very quickly, and adds the 2nd 2 geysers while you are only spending minerals on attacking units. This means you will have more gas than you are used to because you are not spending as much of it early on making stalkers, more sentries, or quicker tech. It will be awkward trying to spend all of this gas right away; you will find that you can get up to DTs and high templars much quicker than you usually can. Abuse that! You can prepare for DT drop timings or archon/chargelot timings quicker than you are used to, so make sure you capitalize on your gas income as soon as possible. This style relies heavily on harass and splitting up your army, so get used to executing small drops and proxy warp-ins to do chip damage. Start getting more comfortable with camera hotkeys; you can more efficiently dump units into a location without having to mousemove/mini map click there. This concept is difficult to explore. HerO will typically have 2 random probes out on the map and will somehow be able to establish convenient proxy pylons to ensure a close warp-in. This will come only with a lot of experience. You will notice your 2nd hidden probe should leave your base right before lings are out on the map. CB'ing your first zealot to deny access to the tower will be pivotal in maintaining the secret identities of your spies, so do as you will with this somewhat expendable zealot what up bitches . Transitioning quite freely into the mid game, you will be making more and more decisions every game which usually result in longer games with more expansions. This style will give you the core infrastructure you need to harass throughout the game, as warp prisms and dark templars are easy to grab from the opener. There is no excuse to not always have a pylon or a warp prism in a favorable location that you can warp in units to harass/cancel expansions effectively. You want the zerg to play as defensively and conservatively as possible if you want to establish additional bases without fear of a straight-forward attack.
Ultras are quite easy to deal with out of this opener, as you are quite gateway heavy and have the ability to warp in high templars for archons and dt/zealot for buffers. As you are not relying on colossus to deal aoe damage, you can also pump out a good deal of immortals since your robo won't be tied up outside of WP/obs production
Broods can be dealt with using stalker/archon/ht/sentry compositions, but void rays can help in late game situations against roach/brood or roach/infestor/brood compositions as well. In situations outside of a 2 base all-in from the zerg, this build will get you up to the 8-minute mark when your zealots should be assaulting the third. From there, it is pretty open ended. The 2 additional gateways are not listed explicitly in the build order, but after watching and playing this build many times out, I feel as though getting up to 6 gates is the "next step," whether or not you're trying to take a 3rd early. Having more gateways improves your ability to hold off roach rallies to your 3rd or nat before your stronger tech units kick in, and lacking on GW's will severely hamper your ability to move forward into the mid game with any kind of strength. This section will be updated as always alejP v frostiZIn this case, I manage to keep my probe alive and unscouted until the very last second. He was not opening roach and didn't have lings out in time, so I pretty much won immediately. alejP v ZeNEXMunchlaZMy probe managed to get an extremely good pylon by the third before it finished, allowing me to get really good warp-ins. DT drops seal the deal. alejP v kinderZMy zealot pressure does not kill the hatchery. I probably could have killed it by focusing it down sooner but I was distracted I suppose. I use the WP to take the 3rd between my main and his 4th which goes unscouted; zergs will tend to neglect scouting bases like this for the time being, but as this kind of play becomes more popular, you probably won't be able to get away with this as easily :p alejP v lynxZI didn't get up a good pylon but because my opponent opened up with slower roaches, I was able to force more units and do at least some economic damage. A DT drop follows up to snipe the 3rd hatch as I take my own 3rd and transition into a robust, macro-oriented midgame. alejP v shortizzZThis game, my opponent opens up roach but doesn't get enough out in time to stop me from killing his 3rd. I try out a colossus transition and a slightly later 3rd and forgo WP harass, though it could have been very beneficial given the map positions. http://sc2rep.com/replays/download?id=16869this is vs greedy 3rd with roaches not quite in time.. pretty much ideal for what we're doing. i delay the gases just a tad and it seems to really help with 4g timing http://sc2rep.com/replays/download?id=16870inbase proxy hatch that I don't scout until I can see the creep.. no quick 3rd scout, scouted early roach warren here's one vs 2 base roach aggression! it finally happened! alejP v mkengynZif you scout that he's still mining gas past 2400, get some cannons and a few stalkers to micro. also re rally your nat nexus to your main minerals and send all the probes to mine in your main. i lose a few needlessly. also there was no need to push in after i killed the nat; i got greedy. should have taken my third and teched happily. Check out HerO's vods. He does this almost every PvZ, if not the stargate build if he cannot secure hidden probes early on http://www.twitch.tv/liquidheroFeel free to leave comments/feedback/replays Thanks for reading aLeJ
Uhm... I'm only replying in order to "bookmark" this thread
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Hey Alej,
What do you think of delaying the 2nd/3rd/4th gate and instead building robo at 6:30, then gates at 7mins. This means that we can get an observer into zerg's base by 8:30-9mins to scout their tech (e.g. mutas) and we can still warp in zealots at the third around 8:15min. I was thinking of this because I felt that in the OP, if we get the robo later (you seem to get it around 8mins i think in the replays i saw) then we only just get a obs scout in around 10mins which is a small margin of time to react to 2-base mutas.
Sorry, still so confused about scouting 2-base vs 3-base play! Do you mainly scout through your zealot pressure and seeing their units?
Also, did you have any replays against a roach/ling all-in at 7:15min? I saw your replay against 2-base roach, but wanted to see one too with lings
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On January 12 2012 08:43 bankai wrote:Hey Alej, What do you think of delaying the 2nd/3rd/4th gate and instead building robo at 6:30, then gates at 7mins. This means that we can get an observer into zerg's base by 8:30-9mins to scout their tech (e.g. mutas) and we can still warp in zealots at the third around 8:15min. I was thinking of this because I felt that in the OP, if we get the robo later (you seem to get it around 8mins i think in the replays i saw) then we only just get a obs scout in around 10mins which is a small margin of time to react to 2-base mutas. Sorry, still so confused about scouting 2-base vs 3-base play! Do you mainly scout through your zealot pressure and seeing their units? Also, did you have any replays against a roach/ling all-in at 7:15min? I saw your replay against 2-base roach, but wanted to see one too with lings
There is a variation you can do that gets the robo after 1 gate but then adds 4 additional gates and a wp for sentry drop. you can scout the spire if it's in the main, and kill it, too :D
with the 4 gates first build, i've been adding 2 gases right after the additional gateways and then the robo, though you can probably get the robo and then the 2 gases. also i've been keeping only 2 guys in each of the first two geysers after i've mined about a hundred gas and then putting them back on once the robo starts. really helps getting the 2 zealots out and continuing good probe production while adding infrastructure. if you go through
i've had a lot of success scouting with a 2nd probe that leaves as you put down your first cannon. having 2 probes out on the map means you should always know if it's 2 bases or 3 bases. ~6 mins is a good time to check for the 3rd, if not a bit earlier. if you don't have a probe out for the gw pressure, i recommend doing the wp build i mentioned above
but if you're doing the pure gw press variation, and your zerg opponent is only defending with lings (and thus losing the third) make sure you poke into the nat after you take it down. if you see spines, you can immediately rule out roach. that means muta or infestor (or hydra, i've found o_0). by the time i need to know the difference, i can get my obs there in time. really all you need to do is warp in a round of 4-5 stalkers along with the round of sentries you should have made after ceasing zealot production to hold off the first muta fly-by
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On January 09 2012 02:30 Zarent wrote:
Just a question - What do you do with this build if you witness an EXTREMELY early third? Like one that is placed immediately after the Nat expansion?
What I've been doing is attempting to send a probe to the third covered by my first zealot and throw down a pylon and cannon behind the mineral line, but this seems extremely vulnerable to the first few lings scouting my probe and killing it. If I miss this cannon, I have absolutely no early game plan since the +1 Zealot poke can be deferred by a few roaches before they can actively damage the third.
if they have get a super fast 3rd like that, you can almost guarantee it's roaches. i recommend getting a robo and then 4 more gates instead of just 3 gateways and going for a 4 sentry drop. this takes the pressure off of you allowing you to probe freely and get yourself a faster 3rd without having to worry about a pure roach bust. the wp play is quite effective against 3 base roach, especially on maps like metal where you can abuse the distance between main and nat min lines. drop the sentries, warp in a few zealots and ff the drones to their doom. you can snipe key tech structures (spire, for instance) doing this, as zergs tend to stuff these in their mineral lines
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On January 12 2012 12:52 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 08:43 bankai wrote:Hey Alej, What do you think of delaying the 2nd/3rd/4th gate and instead building robo at 6:30, then gates at 7mins. This means that we can get an observer into zerg's base by 8:30-9mins to scout their tech (e.g. mutas) and we can still warp in zealots at the third around 8:15min. I was thinking of this because I felt that in the OP, if we get the robo later (you seem to get it around 8mins i think in the replays i saw) then we only just get a obs scout in around 10mins which is a small margin of time to react to 2-base mutas. Sorry, still so confused about scouting 2-base vs 3-base play! Do you mainly scout through your zealot pressure and seeing their units? Also, did you have any replays against a roach/ling all-in at 7:15min? I saw your replay against 2-base roach, but wanted to see one too with lings There is a variation you can do that gets the robo after 1 gate but then adds 4 additional gates and a wp for sentry drop. you can scout the spire if it's in the main, and kill it, too :D with the 4 gates first build, i've been adding 2 gases right after the additional gateways and then the robo, though you can probably get the robo and then the 2 gases. also i've been keeping only 2 guys in each of the first two geysers after i've mined about a hundred gas and then putting them back on once the robo starts. really helps getting the 2 zealots out and continuing good probe production while adding infrastructure. if you go through i've had a lot of success scouting with a 2nd probe that leaves as you put down your first cannon. having 2 probes out on the map means you should always know if it's 2 bases or 3 bases. ~6 mins is a good time to check for the 3rd, if not a bit earlier. if you don't have a probe out for the gw pressure, i recommend doing the wp build i mentioned above but if you're doing the pure gw press variation, and your zerg opponent is only defending with lings (and thus losing the third) make sure you poke into the nat after you take it down. if you see spines, you can immediately rule out roach. that means muta or infestor (or hydra, i've found o_0). by the time i need to know the difference, i can get my obs there in time. really all you need to do is warp in a round of 4-5 stalkers along with the round of sentries you should have made after ceasing zealot production to hold off the first muta fly-by
Alej - you are the man! thanks a lot
I like the sound of the robo-->4gates-->WP sentry drop idea and read about this in Arcane's thread (although that includes a void ray into the mix as well). If you open with robo before the additional gates, how do you defend against roach/ling all-ins?? since we are building sentries early, I assume just build lots of cannons??
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only do the wp build if you've confirmed 3rd base. doesn't really have a leg to stand on vs. a 2 base zerg
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On January 12 2012 15:26 Alejandrisha wrote:
only do the wp build if you've confirmed 3rd base. doesn't really have a leg to stand on vs. a 2 base zerg
Thanks Alej!
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What do I do if the zerg scouts my 3 gates building and makes a ton of lings. Do I just warp in and continue with it or warp in sentries and macro, in that case I would lose.
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I didn't realize you wrote this guide as well as the 4-gate is dead thread I've been using this build for the past week or two and it's honestly a fantastic way to play the matchup. I've beaten many GM / pro zergs using this style, and it also makes the matchup incredibly versatile and fun to play.
Thanks for writing this up I always plop down my robo and twilight at the same time and usually go straight into blink, +2, a warp prism, and then some immortals. Using chronoboost on probes early to get a good econ, then chrono on upgrades to get to +3 as fast as possible and start melting zergs. I want to play around with a double forge style as well, but I'm not sure if you have the gas for any double ups beyond +1 until you have a 3rd.
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On January 14 2012 21:57 soLremarK wrote:I didn't realize you wrote this guide as well as the 4-gate is dead thread I've been using this build for the past week or two and it's honestly a fantastic way to play the matchup. I've beaten many GM / pro zergs using this style, and it also makes the matchup incredibly versatile and fun to play. Thanks for writing this up I always plop down my robo and twilight at the same time and usually go straight into blink, +2, a warp prism, and then some immortals. Using chronoboost on probes early to get a good econ, then chrono on upgrades to get to +3 as fast as possible and start melting zergs. I want to play around with a double forge style as well, but I'm not sure if you have the gas for any double ups beyond +1 until you have a 3rd.
I find that armor upgrades dont do that much for you, while attack upgrades help tremendously:
zealot drops, collosi, stalkers. you are always at the range advantage ! PvZ is a tad to gas intensive for 2 forges, I feel like.
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yeah. the only times i've gotten 2 forges is like... on 3 bases and forge gets sniped and then sure double upgrades why not. but `going` double upgrades doesn't seem very good. the whole idea of stalker/sentry/colo or immort/ht is based around you NOT taking damage from roaches/lings. if you're taking damage from these, you aren't using your ffs correctly :D
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Copied and pasted this into a google doc so I can rearrange and edit to my own style. Thanks Also HerO rules! ^^
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np! i'm considering adding the robo + 5 gate +1 variation.. not sure if it warrants its own thread or if it can be tacked on to here
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On January 12 2012 12:55 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On January 09 2012 02:30 Zarent wrote:
Just a question - What do you do with this build if you witness an EXTREMELY early third? Like one that is placed immediately after the Nat expansion?
What I've been doing is attempting to send a probe to the third covered by my first zealot and throw down a pylon and cannon behind the mineral line, but this seems extremely vulnerable to the first few lings scouting my probe and killing it. If I miss this cannon, I have absolutely no early game plan since the +1 Zealot poke can be deferred by a few roaches before they can actively damage the third. if they have get a super fast 3rd like that, you can almost guarantee it's roaches. i recommend getting a robo and then 4 more gates instead of just 3 gateways and going for a 4 sentry drop. this takes the pressure off of you allowing you to probe freely and get yourself a faster 3rd without having to worry about a pure roach bust. the wp play is quite effective against 3 base roach, especially on maps like metal where you can abuse the distance between main and nat min lines. drop the sentries, warp in a few zealots and ff the drones to their doom. you can snipe key tech structures (spire, for instance) doing this, as zergs tend to stuff these in their mineral lines
I really think you should do some kind of zealot pressure vs fast 3rd every time. I used to play like you described but I sometimes ran into Zerg players who skipped roaches entirely and actually had mutas in time to snipe the warp prism as it was flying around. That's a greedy move that never works against zealot pressure, but if they know you're going straight to robo from the last time you met on ladder, that's the kind of risks they can get away with.
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On January 22 2012 08:34 iamke55 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 12:55 Alejandrisha wrote:On January 09 2012 02:30 Zarent wrote:
Just a question - What do you do with this build if you witness an EXTREMELY early third? Like one that is placed immediately after the Nat expansion?
What I've been doing is attempting to send a probe to the third covered by my first zealot and throw down a pylon and cannon behind the mineral line, but this seems extremely vulnerable to the first few lings scouting my probe and killing it. If I miss this cannon, I have absolutely no early game plan since the +1 Zealot poke can be deferred by a few roaches before they can actively damage the third. if they have get a super fast 3rd like that, you can almost guarantee it's roaches. i recommend getting a robo and then 4 more gates instead of just 3 gateways and going for a 4 sentry drop. this takes the pressure off of you allowing you to probe freely and get yourself a faster 3rd without having to worry about a pure roach bust. the wp play is quite effective against 3 base roach, especially on maps like metal where you can abuse the distance between main and nat min lines. drop the sentries, warp in a few zealots and ff the drones to their doom. you can snipe key tech structures (spire, for instance) doing this, as zergs tend to stuff these in their mineral lines I really think you should do some kind of zealot pressure vs fast 3rd every time. I used to play like you described but I sometimes ran into Zerg players who skipped roaches entirely and actually had mutas in time to snipe the warp prism as it was flying around. That's a greedy move that never works against zealot pressure, but if they know you're going straight to robo from the last time you met on ladder, that's the kind of risks they can get away with.
the wp has some pretty nice zealot pressure behind it, but it comes up to a minute later than w/o the WP drop. You can do both, but I usually opt for the sentry play simply because my 2 probes got found on the map by lings
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So you always get DTs as part of your midgame core? You also mention it's hard it's hard to secure your 3rd if you don't do enough damage with your DTs, so I assume you mean you can't deter pushes at your 3rd with the threat of DTs? Do zergs players just make a boatload of overseers and push you with roach spam or something?
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On January 22 2012 08:22 Alejandrisha wrote:
np! i'm considering adding the robo + 5 gate +1 variation.. not sure if it warrants its own thread or if it can be tacked on to here
Please do! I love this guide but im always looking for new ways to do it. I would appreciate it greatly
Edit: Do you have a replay of you doing WP sentry drops vs. a very fast 3rd?
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Why didn't I see this 2 weeks ago when I started playing again? lol T_T. Well, better late than never. Thanks a lot to the dude who showed it to me . Great guide. I'll really try it out this weekend.
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On January 26 2012 05:02 Skyro wrote:
So you always get DTs as part of your midgame core? You also mention it's hard it's hard to secure your 3rd if you don't do enough damage with your DTs, so I assume you mean you can't deter pushes at your 3rd with the threat of DTs? Do zergs players just make a boatload of overseers and push you with roach spam or something?
nah i don't really do the dt thing anymore, and neither does herO from what I've gathered. for me it has become 6-7 gates and blink with ~2 immortal if i see any roaches. been getting my 3rd quite conservatively if i can do damage with the 4g +1 zeal push or robo 5gate wp sentry harass. if i don't see an opening to do damage with off of 2 bases, i take the 3rd and 4th gases faster and play more reactively. still trying to find good 3rd/aggression timings against a zerg who doesn't take quick 3rd, as all tosses are atm ^^
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On January 26 2012 16:11 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 05:02 Skyro wrote:
So you always get DTs as part of your midgame core? You also mention it's hard it's hard to secure your 3rd if you don't do enough damage with your DTs, so I assume you mean you can't deter pushes at your 3rd with the threat of DTs? Do zergs players just make a boatload of overseers and push you with roach spam or something? nah i don't really do the dt thing anymore, and neither does herO from what I've gathered. for me it has become 6-7 gates and blink with ~2 immortal if i see any roaches. been getting my 3rd quite conservatively if i can do damage with the 4g +1 zeal push or robo 5gate wp sentry harass. if i don't see an opening to do damage with off of 2 bases, i take the 3rd and 4th gases faster and play more reactively. still trying to find good 3rd/aggression timings against a zerg who doesn't take quick 3rd, as all tosses are atm ^^
Haha yeah it's kind of funny actually how it seems most protosses nowadays seem to be more comfortable playing vs fast 3rd hatch than the old-school 2-base roach. I feel like if your timings are tight, you can still more or less force zerg to go roaches with warp prism harass even if they are on 2-base as I can hit a timing where I'm warping in zealots in their main @ 9 mins with 1/1 zealots. As far as I've seen, this is right before any possible mutas/infestors pop, and the zealots can do a ton of damage before mutas pop and clean them up, and it seems pretty much auto-win vs infestorling so far. I started out with 7-gates behind my initial warp prism harass, then reduced it to 6. Now I'm thinking I may be able to get away with just 5 gates.
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On January 26 2012 16:11 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2012 05:02 Skyro wrote:
So you always get DTs as part of your midgame core? You also mention it's hard it's hard to secure your 3rd if you don't do enough damage with your DTs, so I assume you mean you can't deter pushes at your 3rd with the threat of DTs? Do zergs players just make a boatload of overseers and push you with roach spam or something? nah i don't really do the dt thing anymore, and neither does herO from what I've gathered. for me it has become 6-7 gates and blink with ~2 immortal if i see any roaches. been getting my 3rd quite conservatively if i can do damage with the 4g +1 zeal push or robo 5gate wp sentry harass. if i don't see an opening to do damage with off of 2 bases, i take the 3rd and 4th gases faster and play more reactively. still trying to find good 3rd/aggression timings against a zerg who doesn't take quick 3rd, as all tosses are atm ^^
Well, I'm glad to hear that you are struggling with timings against Z who take late 3rds. Not that I want toss to struggle, but in lowly diamond, these two base variations are as common as a fast third. Even in the intro, you note not to do the build vs a 2base all-in, but I've encountered so many variations of 2-base tech into a late 3rd (8-10 minute third). I sometimes feel it is best to do straight 4-gate pressure against a 2base opening (rather than straight zealot). But the options for zerg (especially muta vs hydra) when they don't take a fast third can be scary. I find that when I pressure, they often have an army. But if I don't pressure, they greedily tech off of 2 zerglings into hydra/muta/infestor.
I also have been using a robo/4gate with prism before obs to pressure against 2 base. The warp prism allows me the same scouting as the obs with a chance to pressure the zerg without the threat of losing all my units. I don't know how viable this is at masters/GM but perhaps it is similar to your 5gate/robo.
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What is you usual follow-up if you encounter the worst case scenario of seeing the Zerg rush for speed and kill your both probes before you can confirm if he kept mining gas or take a third base?
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Could you include an alternate transition in the event that your zealot timing doesn't do any damage? DTs feel kind of like hail mary at this point since zergs seem to have an evo ready. I've been finding it really difficult not to just go 7 gate +2 blink in order to kill their third. That feels semi allinish though.
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Thank you so much, I badly needed this. Zerg is so hard for me right now.
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On February 02 2012 05:25 Sated wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2012 04:10 CaptainHaz wrote:
Could you include an alternate transition in the event that your zealot timing doesn't do any damage? DTs feel kind of like hail mary at this point since zergs seem to have an evo ready. I've been finding it really difficult not to just go 7 gate +2 blink in order to kill their third. That feels semi allinish though. Depends what they managed to fend off your Zealots with and whether or not they took a third. I'm going to assume that they got a fast third based on what you said. 1) If they used Roaches to deflect the Zealot timing then you're probably need to turtle for a bit and get out either Colossi or Immortals to defend against incoming Roach spam. Immortals are probably more effective since you can get them out faster. Once you've got enough units, push out and take your third base before teching towards High Templar. Sentry/Stalker/Immortal is a pretty good composition against Roaches until you can take your third, just don't forget to get Blink! 2) If they defend using only Zerglings then they're probably going for Mutalisks. If you can use an Observer or Hallucination to confirm it then you should, but if not then you should probably do the 7gate all-in anyway. Zerg can't hope to defend it if they are trying to take a fast third and teching towards Mutalisks. I don't think Infestors would do great against a 7gate either, because they wouldn't have had enough time to get the energy required for chain fungals if your timing is crisp. EDIT: Quick question - on a map like Shattered Temple, how on earth are you supposed to scout to see if Zerg has a third or is trying to take one? Is it better to forget about the +1 Zealot pressure and simply move straight into Blink Stalker/Immortal to try and defend against both Roaches and 2base Mutalisk?
This doesn't address my question very well since usually if you try to take a third so late you're going to be killed by either a tech switch or pure roach spam.
The roach spam you are referring to isn't something that is always going to come since most good zergs are comfortable either tech switching or sitting back and taking a 4th and teching to hive tech while being backed by 90 drones or something of that sort.
Anyway my question was answered earlier in the thread after looking around a bit more. Generally if they deflect with roaches a two immortal timing with blink should be strong enough for you to either win or safely secure your third.
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Great build Alej. :D
Could someone clarify what to do if the zerg stays on 2 bases? I'm guessing that you shouldn't try the zealot pressure in that case. I've been playing against people that go ling/baneling/infestor with in base hatches and fairly late 3rds and I'm not sure this build can put pressure on at any point. Should I just be comfortable with my macro situation and get a fairly quick 3rd?
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Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches
Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener?
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On February 27 2012 08:29 Jerubaal wrote:
Great build Alej. :D
Could someone clarify what to do if the zerg stays on 2 bases? I'm guessing that you shouldn't try the zealot pressure in that case. I've been playing against people that go ling/baneling/infestor with in base hatches and fairly late 3rds and I'm not sure this build can put pressure on at any point. Should I just be comfortable with my macro situation and get a fairly quick 3rd?
if hes on two bases i would just send one or two warp in of zealots and try to scout with them. If hes taken all four gases hes probably going rushing to infestor or muta. Use ur zealots to run up in his main to check. It can be a 3 hatch two base mass roaches or some frigging doom drop with roach or hydras.
If hes going two base muta i really recommend trying to get a quick third, hes been saving most of his resources to save for his first batch of muta so he wont have too many lings out. If its against infestors, you can still take a somewhat fast third, but the defenses must be rock solid, he might do some burrow trickery and snipe your bases with mass infested terrans or try to hit everywhere with ling run-bys.
edit: if youve combined your four gate pressure with a stargate as well and hes going muta, you can do a TON of damage with zealots voidray phoenix combo. Hes most likely using mostly lings and spines to defend and if he thinks he can actually get those mutas out your air army will be waiting to pick all those off and the games pretty much yours after that.
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On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener?
Would also like an answer to this.
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On March 02 2012 04:31 Salv wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener? Would also like an answer to this.
If they deflect the zealot timing without taking losses you're definitely behind.
(Where the map allows) I've just been taking a really fast 3rd off the 4gates, then adding 2 more gates plus robo, followed shortly by a twilight. I've really started to prefer this sort of economic pressure on some maps, it may not be everyone's cup of tea though.
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On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener?
thats the downfall of using a timing attack, if the zerg knows what kind of attack your gona use and prepares for it, then its almost impossible to do any damage. You can try the variation where the attack hits about 30 seconds sooner with constant chronoboost on the warpgate tech. That can throw zergs off because they know the normal warp in rounds start around 8:30. Or you can combo it with voidrays. Even if the attack fails you can maintain map control with your air units.
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On March 02 2012 04:31 Salv wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener? Would also like an answer to this.
Itll never be perfect pressure, but it transitions really well into responsive play, and at the least it forces zerg to stop droning for the time u hit and often disorients them to a certain degree. Or if u feel he has alot , and dont want to pressure based on the read, just threaten with first 2 zealots by securing towers, checking for 3rd, then taking a 3rd at about 9 30-10min off about 2-3 warp in cycles of sentry>zealot>stalker>3rd imo and use your next 4 buildings to wall your 3rd.
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On March 02 2012 08:32 Foks wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2012 04:31 Salv wrote:On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener? Would also like an answer to this. Itll never be perfect pressure, but it transitions really well into responsive play, and at the least it forces zerg to stop droning for the time u hit and often disorients them to a certain degree. Or if u feel he has alot , and dont want to pressure based on the read, just threaten with first 2 zealots by securing towers, checking for 3rd, then taking a 3rd at about 9 30-10min off about 2-3 warp in cycles of sentry>zealot>stalker>3rd imo and use your next 4 buildings to wall your 3rd.
Thanks for all the helpful replies.
Can I clarify what do you mean by "2-3 warp in cycles of sentry>zealot>stalker>3rd imo"? Do you mean produce a mix of zealot/stalker/sentry/immortal off 4 gateways for 3 warp-in cycles, then instead of placing the 5th/6th Gateway you put down a Nexus at about 9:30mins?
Is it safe to expand that early against a 3-base zerg? If they go mass roach and attack, what is the typical timing that normally hits?
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On March 05 2012 15:01 bankai wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2012 08:32 Foks wrote:On March 02 2012 04:31 Salv wrote:On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener? Would also like an answer to this. Itll never be perfect pressure, but it transitions really well into responsive play, and at the least it forces zerg to stop droning for the time u hit and often disorients them to a certain degree. Or if u feel he has alot , and dont want to pressure based on the read, just threaten with first 2 zealots by securing towers, checking for 3rd, then taking a 3rd at about 9 30-10min off about 2-3 warp in cycles of sentry>zealot>stalker>3rd imo and use your next 4 buildings to wall your 3rd. Thanks for all the helpful replies. Can I clarify what do you mean by "2-3 warp in cycles of sentry>zealot>stalker>3rd imo"? Do you mean produce a mix of zealot/stalker/sentry/immortal off 4 gateways for 3 warp-in cycles, then instead of placing the 5th/6th Gateway you put down a Nexus at about 9:30mins? Is it safe to expand that early against a 3-base zerg? If they go mass roach and attack, what is the typical timing that normally hits?
bump
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need to get that 8:30 down to 8:10 or sooner. lately i have not been doing this as much. i will keep 2 probes on each geyser but if my probe is detected, i will put 3 on each per usual and go into SG play. this opener still has its place, but zergs are adapting with an early safe roach warren for 3-4 roaches which shuts this down almost blindly. it can still work but is definitely no longer a staple in my artillery. stay tuned for my next guide (soonish) on the ffe sg-> 2/1 3 base 3 colo push.
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On March 05 2012 15:01 bankai wrote:Show nested quote +On March 02 2012 08:32 Foks wrote:On March 02 2012 04:31 Salv wrote:On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener? Would also like an answer to this. Itll never be perfect pressure, but it transitions really well into responsive play, and at the least it forces zerg to stop droning for the time u hit and often disorients them to a certain degree. Or if u feel he has alot , and dont want to pressure based on the read, just threaten with first 2 zealots by securing towers, checking for 3rd, then taking a 3rd at about 9 30-10min off about 2-3 warp in cycles of sentry>zealot>stalker>3rd imo and use your next 4 buildings to wall your 3rd. Thanks for all the helpful replies. Can I clarify what do you mean by "2-3 warp in cycles of sentry>zealot>stalker>3rd imo"? Do you mean produce a mix of zealot/stalker/sentry/immortal off 4 gateways for 3 warp-in cycles, then instead of placing the 5th/6th Gateway you put down a Nexus at about 9:30mins? Is it safe to expand that early against a 3-base zerg? If they go mass roach and attack, what is the typical timing that normally hits?
What I mean is that your first round of warp ins should be sentries if pressure doesnt seem like it will work for whatever reason, bring u to about 6 sentries which is enough w/o yet knowing if hes going muta or roach. Then you can warp in a around of zealots because your gas needs to recooperate. Then a round of stalkers. All this off 4 gates. Then after that u can try to grab a 3rd and use 2-4 gates + cannons to wall it, but usually i play safe and add my robo+twilight, 2 gates in main, and either a dt shrine or another robo moving into a 3rd. Going for the early third is of course risky, and is susceptible to roach spam, but if he went mutas its better u went for the early 3rd. Its a bit of a dice roll unless u get an obs or some kind of scout in there and see whats up early, which is why like an 11 min 3rd is prob the best blind-option. There is no impervious strategy vs zerg mid game because they can do either 2 strategies (mass roach or muta) that will fu ck you up if u dont prepare well for both if not scouted.
I still think this overall strat is viable even w/o the 4 gate pressure. Just the feign of pressure is usually enough to get a desired effect (which is effectively what a 1 stargate play is : ie soft/feigned pressure). There is no PvZ midgame strat that a zerg can't counter very very hard (whether 4g/1 stargate, 2 stargate, 4gate/blink, 4g/robo, etc), so u kind of have to get comfortable with the uncomfortableness of it all .
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On March 07 2012 02:15 Alejandrisha wrote:
need to get that 8:30 down to 8:10 or sooner. lately i have not been doing this as much. i will keep 2 probes on each geyser but if my probe is detected, i will put 3 on each per usual and go into SG play. this opener still has its place, but zergs are adapting with an early safe roach warren for 3-4 roaches which shuts this down almost blindly. it can still work but is definitely no longer a staple in my artillery. stay tuned for my next guide (soonish) on the ffe sg-> 2/1 3 base 3 colo push.
I agree that the surprise factor of 6 zealots hitting the third at 8:10 is pretty much gone in the current metagame. It can still work if you do it sneaky fast and hit at 7:40, but the timing is a bit of a gamble since you can't guarantee a good trade and you can't retreat.
I really prefer cutting out the 4th gate and throwing in a void ray. This slows the timing down slightly--the fastest you can hit is about 8:00 instead of 7:40, but adding in the void allows you to harass even when roaches are out in time, and it ensures that your zealots will be able to retreat since +1 zealots rock lings and the void will kill any chasing roaches.
Cloud Kingdom is one map where I prefer the 4 gate pressure to the 3 gate+SG pressure. Something about the layout of the map makes it hard to get anything done with the void ray.
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The games I played so far with this build gave me the impression that if you speed the zealot-attack up (torwards 7:20-7:40 depending on ability to Nexus first or not) by constantly boosting the core and agressively deploying a forward pylon under the cover of the initial 2 zealots, the timing is no longer about surprise but actually strength. At that time Zerg is roughly even in terms of eco even though on 3 bases.
If they try to defend with lings you just keep warping in zealots and basically let their eco stagnate (costefficient) for the duration of your attack. If they already have roaches at that time that means that they made even earlier investment into the warren, additional overlords and gas-gathering which allows you to simply fall back (no roachspeed yet, no creepspread) and take your third because zerg has to decide to make up for the early cuts in eco by droning or attacking, backed up by an economy ~ equal to the protoss which should be manageable.
Take my thoughts with a grain of salt though.
Due to the fact that this sharp timing is very hard to reach (at least for me) I miss it more often than not and even if I succeed most zergs on low masters are not able to deflect a 7:xx Zealot-Attack and lose their third almost always, which makes the followup for a failed snipe obsolete.
Therefore my conclusions are purely based on comparision of worker-numbers in my reps.
Small Tip to enhance the attack: Force-Attack the Zealots upon the hatchery and as soon as they have formed a clustered melee range arc press hold position. Zealots will attack the hatchery if nothing else is in range and defend themselfs automatically against zerglings or pulled drones while ignoring for example queens, few roaches or single spinecrawler.
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On March 07 2012 02:15 Alejandrisha wrote:
need to get that 8:30 down to 8:10 or sooner. lately i have not been doing this as much. i will keep 2 probes on each geyser but if my probe is detected, i will put 3 on each per usual and go into SG play. this opener still has its place, but zergs are adapting with an early safe roach warren for 3-4 roaches which shuts this down almost blindly. it can still work but is definitely no longer a staple in my artillery. stay tuned for my next guide (soonish) on the ffe sg-> 2/1 3 base 3 colo push.
Please please bring out that guide....cant wait!!!
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On March 07 2012 02:34 Foks wrote:Show nested quote +On March 05 2012 15:01 bankai wrote:On March 02 2012 08:32 Foks wrote:On March 02 2012 04:31 Salv wrote:On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener? Would also like an answer to this. Itll never be perfect pressure, but it transitions really well into responsive play, and at the least it forces zerg to stop droning for the time u hit and often disorients them to a certain degree. Or if u feel he has alot , and dont want to pressure based on the read, just threaten with first 2 zealots by securing towers, checking for 3rd, then taking a 3rd at about 9 30-10min off about 2-3 warp in cycles of sentry>zealot>stalker>3rd imo and use your next 4 buildings to wall your 3rd. Thanks for all the helpful replies. Can I clarify what do you mean by "2-3 warp in cycles of sentry>zealot>stalker>3rd imo"? Do you mean produce a mix of zealot/stalker/sentry/immortal off 4 gateways for 3 warp-in cycles, then instead of placing the 5th/6th Gateway you put down a Nexus at about 9:30mins? Is it safe to expand that early against a 3-base zerg? If they go mass roach and attack, what is the typical timing that normally hits? What I mean is that your first round of warp ins should be sentries if pressure doesnt seem like it will work for whatever reason, bring u to about 6 sentries which is enough w/o yet knowing if hes going muta or roach. Then you can warp in a around of zealots because your gas needs to recooperate. Then a round of stalkers. All this off 4 gates. Then after that u can try to grab a 3rd and use 2-4 gates + cannons to wall it, but usually i play safe and add my robo+twilight, 2 gates in main, and either a dt shrine or another robo moving into a 3rd. Going for the early third is of course risky, and is susceptible to roach spam, but if he went mutas its better u went for the early 3rd. Its a bit of a dice roll unless u get an obs or some kind of scout in there and see whats up early, which is why like an 11 min 3rd is prob the best blind-option. There is no impervious strategy vs zerg mid game because they can do either 2 strategies (mass roach or muta) that will fu ck you up if u dont prepare well for both if not scouted. I still think this overall strat is viable even w/o the 4 gate pressure. Just the feign of pressure is usually enough to get a desired effect (which is effectively what a 1 stargate play is : ie soft/feigned pressure). There is no PvZ midgame strat that a zerg can't counter very very hard (whether 4g/1 stargate, 2 stargate, 4gate/blink, 4g/robo, etc), so u kind of have to get comfortable with the uncomfortableness of it all .
Ok great thanks for clarifying that. I have been changing lately to an early robo (like 6min or 6:30) and then warp prism drop. If I see lots of roaches coming, I simply don't warp in the zealots, and put down the nexus with the minerals instead. Kinda risky? Not sure...but I figured zerg at that point is just trying to defend and drone up, so therefore I should not expect aggression anytime soon.
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On March 07 2012 02:50 kcdc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2012 02:15 Alejandrisha wrote:
need to get that 8:30 down to 8:10 or sooner. lately i have not been doing this as much. i will keep 2 probes on each geyser but if my probe is detected, i will put 3 on each per usual and go into SG play. this opener still has its place, but zergs are adapting with an early safe roach warren for 3-4 roaches which shuts this down almost blindly. it can still work but is definitely no longer a staple in my artillery. stay tuned for my next guide (soonish) on the ffe sg-> 2/1 3 base 3 colo push. I agree that the surprise factor of 6 zealots hitting the third at 8:10 is pretty much gone in the current metagame. It can still work if you do it sneaky fast and hit at 7:40, but the timing is a bit of a gamble since you can't guarantee a good trade and you can't retreat. I really prefer cutting out the 4th gate and throwing in a void ray. This slows the timing down slightly--the fastest you can hit is about 8:00 instead of 7:40, but adding in the void allows you to harass even when roaches are out in time, and it ensures that your zealots will be able to retreat since +1 zealots rock lings and the void will kill any chasing roaches. Cloud Kingdom is one map where I prefer the 4 gate pressure to the 3 gate+SG pressure. Something about the layout of the map makes it hard to get anything done with the void ray.
Yeah i think more and more the void ray is looking much more useful than pure zealot pressure.
As the post after you suggested, perhaps an earlier zealot attack would work? So if they still have adequate defense like roaches then you know they havent been droning up? Was also thinking to speed up the push, would it work to go up to 3 gates instead of 4gates? 3 gates means probably 1-2 less zealots for the 7-8min push?
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I have been experimenting with this build as of late, because I have previously seen how successful most professional Protoss players are with it. I am not highly ranked though, only in Diamond league, but I still think that it has its place in some games. Sometimes the 4gate +1 zealot pressure build can be devastating for the Zerg player, especially if he has no idea about it. I actually just started doing my own variation of the build after I saw some Protoss players doing it, so my timing has never been as meticulous as described in the guide. I am surprised though that my own variation hits with a warp-in at around 8:10, which I am rather pleased with. Zergs at my level do not seem to know how to effectively deal with this, so I have been capitalizing on it by introducing a sneaky all-in follow-up. When I put up my extra 3 gates, I usually add a twilight council in order to start blink research whilst pressuring my opponent's third. More often than not, I kill of the hatchery thus leaving me in a great position.
I know that this won't work at high skill levels, but this is what I do next: After 2 warp-ins of zealots, the Zerg then usually has quite a number of roaches pounding my zealots just before I kill the hatch. Therefore, I warp in some 4 stalkers to support the zealots. If I see that he is overpowering me, I retaliate and return home with blink almost done, and start +2 research. I immediately add 4 more gates then, and prepare for a 8 gate blink stalker/zealot with +2 all-in. Strangely enough, that transition has been working quite well for me. But after reading this guide I will probably rather start using the recommended transitions, such as a quick 3rd and robo tech etc.
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Can't believe I missed this guide. Thanks alej! I'll have to give this one a try
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been working on some transitions and i have a nice one to add--
9 py (3 cb on nexus)
14 forge (@100% start +1 weapons)
17 nex
17 gate
17 pylon
17 cannon
18 probe; cb nexus once
19 gas
20 2nd gas
21 core
**3 probes on 1st gas, 2 on the 2nd gas; alternatively, 3 on both and pull one from each when +1 starts**
maintain probes on both nexuses, but don't CB them
~23 zealot (1 CB)
~28 2nd zealot and WG (1 CB zeal; 3 CB WG)
~33 pylon
~34 stalker
~40 3 gates
from here, add an in base pylon then your proxy pylon. the 2z1s will help you secure a proxy pylon if you don't have a probe hidden already.
next, make sure 3 probes on each of your main gases. now add a 3rd gas and a twilight council
~48 1st zealot warpin [4]
**add 4th gas in between 1st and 2nd cycle**
~60 2nd zealot warpin[4] (probe production is maintained through these cycles!! I recommend cb'ing the gates in between rounds. you should have 3-4 available.
if you take the 3rd down, save what zealots you can. you can micro vs lings/slow roaches to some extent. get some more bang for your buck out of those guys. if he holds it with roaches, that's not too bad because he must have delayed his lair more than he would have liked to get roches out. if he held it with lings, O_O
when your WGs come up again get a round of sentries. Your TC will be finishing around now. Use your banked gas to start blink and +2. add 2-3 additional gates. i like to get a robo as well for an obs in case they have blink when you move out. You'll want to CB +2 heavily. It's not entirely necessary to cb blink (+2 is 190s vs the 150s of blink) and you'll want to bank some cb for the push.
**Cut probes at about 50-52. this means:
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * * ?
on each mineral line, 12 on gas total (+1 for mr. proxy probe)
blink and +2 will finish between 11:00 and 11:30. you'll have about 16 stalkers, 4-5 sentries and whatever zealots you managed to salvage from your +1 4g push, and an obs if you opted for one. now go kill!
skeleton
http://drop.sc/158976
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This must be your best written and structured guide in my opinion ! Thanks! really appreciate your work on TL. keep it up .
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On April 13 2012 13:08 Alejandrisha wrote:
vs the 150s of blink
Nitpick: Blink is 140s according to http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Blink.
This transition looks good, and is reccomended for those who like the Adonminus build, but are more comfortable with FFE.
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So is it just commit to a blink allin after the pressure with no hope of a macro followup?
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On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener?
I'm also finding it very difficult to make this build work. I'm only Diamond, but zergs are scouting and making it very difficult to secure a proxy pylon.
Again, if you are successful or not in killing the third, Zerg seem to drop a 3rd/4th (or not) and move to mass roach to deny my third. It seems too cheap for Zerg to counter this, and then they know you're not doing anything threatening for a while.
I might have to try a DT followup as suggested.
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On April 14 2012 11:05 CaptainHaz wrote:So is it just commit to a blink allin after the pressure with no hope of a macro followup?
that is correct ^.^
I'm sure you could just as easily cut out 1 or 2 gates and expand behind it, but if he defends his 3rd with roaches and you take a third, you know he is just going to roach spam to 200/200 immediately. On some maps you can deal with this, obviously, but on others it will be tough. Your banked gas will seem like a lot once you begin your transition, but your low gas income up until that point will see you strapped for gas to spend on sentries--who haven't had the luxury of gaining energy for very long--and tech, which will be reasonably developed relative to the game state in which you find yourself--but it is developed enough to hold a 3rd? I am not so sure; in most cases, I find the best follow-up to be a timing attack shortly after the zealot pressure that hits before he is able to reap the benefits of his newly established economy, or, if he reverts to roach spam despite your being on 2 bases, capitalize off of his slow-to-come or even non-existent post-roach lair tech.
EDIT: Of course, if you have your own transitions that include a 3rd, do feel free to post some replays as I'd love to see what people are working with as transitions as always.
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On April 15 2012 08:24 Magnetz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener? I'm also finding it very difficult to make this build work. I'm only Diamond, but zergs are scouting and making it very difficult to secure a proxy pylon. Again, if you are successful or not in killing the third, Zerg seem to drop a 3rd/4th (or not) and move to mass roach to deny my third. It seems too cheap for Zerg to counter this, and then they know you're not doing anything threatening for a while. I might have to try a DT followup as suggested.
have you tried it using the rallied stalker after 2 cb'd zealots? I've never had a pylon denied using 2z1s!
I consider this zealot pressure, even if it doesn't kill the 3rd for you, to be a very strong opening.
If you're not forcing additional units before lair tech and are not going SG to force spores and even a panic hydra den, you are pretty much letting the zerg drone spam in peace which--in the general frame of RTS should not be a big deal if you are playing for the macro game--is a little unsettling because of the larva inject mechanic and thus zerg's ability to fully saturate a 3rd as you are fully saturating your natural.
if your pressure is ineffectual, and especially if it is hitting at 8:30 (and therefore might not be forcing units before lair, which is the ultimate goal of this pressure), you might need to put in some work vs the cpu to get those timings down.
I was actually going nexus-pylon-cannon-gateway rather than nexus-gateway-pylon-cannon or nexus-gateway-cannon-pylon for smaller ground distances for the longest time in doing this, not realizing that this slowed my push down by about 20 seconds without really netting me any economic gain. keep working at it!
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On April 16 2012 04:37 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2012 08:24 Magnetz wrote:On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener? I'm also finding it very difficult to make this build work. I'm only Diamond, but zergs are scouting and making it very difficult to secure a proxy pylon. Again, if you are successful or not in killing the third, Zerg seem to drop a 3rd/4th (or not) and move to mass roach to deny my third. It seems too cheap for Zerg to counter this, and then they know you're not doing anything threatening for a while. I might have to try a DT followup as suggested. have you tried it using the rallied stalker after 2 cb'd zealots? I've never had a pylon denied using 2z1s! I consider this zealot pressure, even if it doesn't kill the 3rd for you, to be a very strong opening. If you're not forcing additional units before lair tech and are not going SG to force spores and even a panic hydra den, you are pretty much letting the zerg drone spam in peace which--in the general frame of RTS should not be a big deal if you are playing for the macro game--is a little unsettling because of the larva inject mechanic and thus zerg's ability to fully saturate a 3rd as you are fully saturating your natural. if your pressure is ineffectual, and especially if it is hitting at 8:30 (and therefore might not be forcing units before lair, which is the ultimate goal of this pressure), you might need to put in some work vs the cpu to get those timings down. I was actually going nexus-pylon-cannon-gateway rather than nexus-gateway-pylon-cannon or nexus-gateway-cannon-pylon for smaller ground distances for the longest time in doing this, not realizing that this slowed my push down by about 20 seconds without really netting me any economic gain. keep working at it!
Have you considered doing a gate expand into this like in the adonminus guide you hit with first warpin around 7 minutes which is at least 30 seconds faster than forge which I think makes a big difference in the damage you do
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On April 16 2012 04:44 AlphaDotCom wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2012 04:37 Alejandrisha wrote:On April 15 2012 08:24 Magnetz wrote:On March 01 2012 15:52 bankai wrote:Has anyone been finding that the zealot pressure at 8:30ish is feeling less and less effective?? It seems zergs are much more prepared now that they build just enough roaches/spines to counter this, then they drone like crazy on 3-base and deny my thrid with lots of roaches Any ideas on some different ways to pressure with this opener? I'm also finding it very difficult to make this build work. I'm only Diamond, but zergs are scouting and making it very difficult to secure a proxy pylon. Again, if you are successful or not in killing the third, Zerg seem to drop a 3rd/4th (or not) and move to mass roach to deny my third. It seems too cheap for Zerg to counter this, and then they know you're not doing anything threatening for a while. I might have to try a DT followup as suggested. have you tried it using the rallied stalker after 2 cb'd zealots? I've never had a pylon denied using 2z1s! I consider this zealot pressure, even if it doesn't kill the 3rd for you, to be a very strong opening. If you're not forcing additional units before lair tech and are not going SG to force spores and even a panic hydra den, you are pretty much letting the zerg drone spam in peace which--in the general frame of RTS should not be a big deal if you are playing for the macro game--is a little unsettling because of the larva inject mechanic and thus zerg's ability to fully saturate a 3rd as you are fully saturating your natural. if your pressure is ineffectual, and especially if it is hitting at 8:30 (and therefore might not be forcing units before lair, which is the ultimate goal of this pressure), you might need to put in some work vs the cpu to get those timings down. I was actually going nexus-pylon-cannon-gateway rather than nexus-gateway-pylon-cannon or nexus-gateway-cannon-pylon for smaller ground distances for the longest time in doing this, not realizing that this slowed my push down by about 20 seconds without really netting me any economic gain. keep working at it! Have you considered doing a gate expand into this like in the adonminus guide you hit with first warpin around 7 minutes which is at least 30 seconds faster than forge which I think makes a big difference in the damage you do
haven't read that but will check it out
wen't through it and watched two of the 'normal' replays.
it is a very good style when you aren't feeling the ffe. but, comparing ffe gw timings to gw expand timings isn't good practice--ffe timings exist in a subset against 3 hatch before gas timings where as gw expand timings will go against a larger variety of builds, as a 2 base zerg will get gas at any given time relative to its third, so it's impossible to say which one is "better" in forcing units before lair.
what i like about the guide you cited is that it should hit at such a time where roach speed is always further off than it is with the push in the guide that i posted.
i will probably try the style you mention on entombed a few times, as i do not like ffe there and use a different kind of expand which is similar to the one you mention in a lot of ways, but also very different in its pressure timings. thank you for referring me to that that style--it has opened my mind to a degree
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I have been playing straight up games after it, at low masters level, and i am having some success, using lots of zealot warpins, and making sure to do at least 2 things at once all the time.
So for example on daybreak, ill get like 6 sentries and 3 immortals, and then do a warpprism drop in 2 of the zergs bases, and simultaeneously set up my third. This puts the zerg in a tricky situation so that they can't stop all three things happening at once, and if the zerg gives you a minute and a half to set up sim city at the third you are set up for the game.
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On April 25 2012 23:37 Alejandrisha wrote:here's another transition heroic dt 3rd
Oh, wow. I love this build. I have yet to execute it anywhere near to perfection, but I haven't lost with it yet (only 4 games, but still) and I've never felt like I had so much map control over a zerg.
Since returning to SC2 after a year-long hiatus I've been trying to decide what to do after my cybercore finishes when FFEing (so much potential, why did it take so long for FFE to take off like it has?). I clumsily stumbled upon the 4gate +1 zealot pressure into blink stalker play but couldn't refine it very well. I looked into it more, found this thread, and then this. You've completely changed my PvZ winrate. Thanks a ton!
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Great post!
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On April 13 2012 13:08 Alejandrisha wrote:been working on some transitions and i have a nice one to add-- 9 py (3 cb on nexus) 14 forge (@100% start +1 weapons)17 nex 17 gate 17 pylon 17 cannon 18 probe; cb nexus once 19 gas
20 2nd gas21 core **3 probes on 1st gas, 2 on the 2nd gas; alternatively, 3 on both and pull one from each when +1 starts** maintain probes on both nexuses, but don't CB them ~23 zealot (1 CB) ~28 2nd zealot and WG (1 CB zeal; 3 CB WG) ~33 pylon ~34 stalker ~40 3 gates from here, add an in base pylon then your proxy pylon. the 2z1s will help you secure a proxy pylon if you don't have a probe hidden already. next, make sure 3 probes on each of your main gases. now add a 3rd gas and a twilight council ~48 1st zealot warpin [4] **add 4th gas in between 1st and 2nd cycle** ~60 2nd zealot warpin[4] (probe production is maintained through these cycles!! I recommend cb'ing the gates in between rounds. you should have 3-4 available. if you take the 3rd down, save what zealots you can. you can micro vs lings/slow roaches to some extent. get some more bang for your buck out of those guys. if he holds it with roaches, that's not too bad because he must have delayed his lair more than he would have liked to get roches out. if he held it with lings, O_O when your WGs come up again get a round of sentries. Your TC will be finishing around now. Use your banked gas to start blink and +2. add 2-3 additional gates. i like to get a robo as well for an obs in case they have blink when you move out. You'll want to CB +2 heavily. It's not entirely necessary to cb blink (+2 is 190s vs the 150s of blink) and you'll want to bank some cb for the push. **Cut probes at about 50-52. this means: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ? on each mineral line, 12 on gas total (+1 for mr. proxy probe) blink and +2 will finish between 11:00 and 11:30. you'll have about 16 stalkers, 4-5 sentries and whatever zealots you managed to salvage from your +1 4g push, and an obs if you opted for one. now go kill! skeleton http://drop.sc/158976
Just wondering if this is a typo or something, but you have "14 forge (@100% +1 Attack)" but in this build you dont take gas ti'll 19 and 20, plus wait time for the assims to finish and then time to mine the 100 gas needed, seems like +1 wont get started ti'll quite some time after the forge finishes.
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Thanks Alej, you are awesome. This is the only build I'm using in PvZ and I'm winning 90% of the time. Platinum NA.
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On June 01 2012 00:57 CookieMonsta02 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2012 13:08 Alejandrisha wrote:been working on some transitions and i have a nice one to add-- 9 py (3 cb on nexus) 14 forge (@100% start +1 weapons)17 nex 17 gate 17 pylon 17 cannon 18 probe; cb nexus once 19 gas
20 2nd gas21 core **3 probes on 1st gas, 2 on the 2nd gas; alternatively, 3 on both and pull one from each when +1 starts** maintain probes on both nexuses, but don't CB them ~23 zealot (1 CB) ~28 2nd zealot and WG (1 CB zeal; 3 CB WG) ~33 pylon ~34 stalker ~40 3 gates from here, add an in base pylon then your proxy pylon. the 2z1s will help you secure a proxy pylon if you don't have a probe hidden already. next, make sure 3 probes on each of your main gases. now add a 3rd gas and a twilight council ~48 1st zealot warpin [4] **add 4th gas in between 1st and 2nd cycle** ~60 2nd zealot warpin[4] (probe production is maintained through these cycles!! I recommend cb'ing the gates in between rounds. you should have 3-4 available. if you take the 3rd down, save what zealots you can. you can micro vs lings/slow roaches to some extent. get some more bang for your buck out of those guys. if he holds it with roaches, that's not too bad because he must have delayed his lair more than he would have liked to get roches out. if he held it with lings, O_O when your WGs come up again get a round of sentries. Your TC will be finishing around now. Use your banked gas to start blink and +2. add 2-3 additional gates. i like to get a robo as well for an obs in case they have blink when you move out. You'll want to CB +2 heavily. It's not entirely necessary to cb blink (+2 is 190s vs the 150s of blink) and you'll want to bank some cb for the push. **Cut probes at about 50-52. this means: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ? on each mineral line, 12 on gas total (+1 for mr. proxy probe) blink and +2 will finish between 11:00 and 11:30. you'll have about 16 stalkers, 4-5 sentries and whatever zealots you managed to salvage from your +1 4g push, and an obs if you opted for one. now go kill! skeleton http://drop.sc/158976 Just wondering if this is a typo or something, but you have "14 forge (@100% +1 Attack)" but in this build you dont take gas ti'll 19 and 20, plus wait time for the assims to finish and then time to mine the 100 gas needed, seems like +1 wont get started ti'll quite some time after the forge finishes.
He means that the second the forge is finished, start +1 Attack upgrade.
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Didn't MC use the DT transition at the most Redbull battlegrounds against Ostijiy? I think in that game MC didn't even do any real damage to the third, but he still managed to buy himself enough time to get his third up.
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On June 01 2012 01:12 GramCracker wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2012 00:57 CookieMonsta02 wrote:On April 13 2012 13:08 Alejandrisha wrote:been working on some transitions and i have a nice one to add-- 9 py (3 cb on nexus) 14 forge (@100% start +1 weapons)17 nex 17 gate 17 pylon 17 cannon 18 probe; cb nexus once 19 gas
20 2nd gas21 core **3 probes on 1st gas, 2 on the 2nd gas; alternatively, 3 on both and pull one from each when +1 starts** maintain probes on both nexuses, but don't CB them ~23 zealot (1 CB) ~28 2nd zealot and WG (1 CB zeal; 3 CB WG) ~33 pylon ~34 stalker ~40 3 gates from here, add an in base pylon then your proxy pylon. the 2z1s will help you secure a proxy pylon if you don't have a probe hidden already. next, make sure 3 probes on each of your main gases. now add a 3rd gas and a twilight council ~48 1st zealot warpin [4] **add 4th gas in between 1st and 2nd cycle** ~60 2nd zealot warpin[4] (probe production is maintained through these cycles!! I recommend cb'ing the gates in between rounds. you should have 3-4 available. if you take the 3rd down, save what zealots you can. you can micro vs lings/slow roaches to some extent. get some more bang for your buck out of those guys. if he holds it with roaches, that's not too bad because he must have delayed his lair more than he would have liked to get roches out. if he held it with lings, O_O when your WGs come up again get a round of sentries. Your TC will be finishing around now. Use your banked gas to start blink and +2. add 2-3 additional gates. i like to get a robo as well for an obs in case they have blink when you move out. You'll want to CB +2 heavily. It's not entirely necessary to cb blink (+2 is 190s vs the 150s of blink) and you'll want to bank some cb for the push. **Cut probes at about 50-52. this means: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ? on each mineral line, 12 on gas total (+1 for mr. proxy probe) blink and +2 will finish between 11:00 and 11:30. you'll have about 16 stalkers, 4-5 sentries and whatever zealots you managed to salvage from your +1 4g push, and an obs if you opted for one. now go kill! skeleton http://drop.sc/158976 Just wondering if this is a typo or something, but you have "14 forge (@100% +1 Attack)" but in this build you dont take gas ti'll 19 and 20, plus wait time for the assims to finish and then time to mine the 100 gas needed, seems like +1 wont get started ti'll quite some time after the forge finishes. He means that the second the forge is finished, start +1 Attack upgrade.
Right, and the way the build is, that is not possible since you arent taking gas until AFTER the forge is done.
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On June 01 2012 03:09 CookieMonsta02 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 01 2012 01:12 GramCracker wrote:On June 01 2012 00:57 CookieMonsta02 wrote:On April 13 2012 13:08 Alejandrisha wrote:been working on some transitions and i have a nice one to add-- 9 py (3 cb on nexus) 14 forge (@100% start +1 weapons)17 nex 17 gate 17 pylon 17 cannon 18 probe; cb nexus once 19 gas
20 2nd gas21 core **3 probes on 1st gas, 2 on the 2nd gas; alternatively, 3 on both and pull one from each when +1 starts** maintain probes on both nexuses, but don't CB them ~23 zealot (1 CB) ~28 2nd zealot and WG (1 CB zeal; 3 CB WG) ~33 pylon ~34 stalker ~40 3 gates from here, add an in base pylon then your proxy pylon. the 2z1s will help you secure a proxy pylon if you don't have a probe hidden already. next, make sure 3 probes on each of your main gases. now add a 3rd gas and a twilight council ~48 1st zealot warpin [4] **add 4th gas in between 1st and 2nd cycle** ~60 2nd zealot warpin[4] (probe production is maintained through these cycles!! I recommend cb'ing the gates in between rounds. you should have 3-4 available. if you take the 3rd down, save what zealots you can. you can micro vs lings/slow roaches to some extent. get some more bang for your buck out of those guys. if he holds it with roaches, that's not too bad because he must have delayed his lair more than he would have liked to get roches out. if he held it with lings, O_O when your WGs come up again get a round of sentries. Your TC will be finishing around now. Use your banked gas to start blink and +2. add 2-3 additional gates. i like to get a robo as well for an obs in case they have blink when you move out. You'll want to CB +2 heavily. It's not entirely necessary to cb blink (+2 is 190s vs the 150s of blink) and you'll want to bank some cb for the push. **Cut probes at about 50-52. this means: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ? on each mineral line, 12 on gas total (+1 for mr. proxy probe) blink and +2 will finish between 11:00 and 11:30. you'll have about 16 stalkers, 4-5 sentries and whatever zealots you managed to salvage from your +1 4g push, and an obs if you opted for one. now go kill! skeleton http://drop.sc/158976 Just wondering if this is a typo or something, but you have "14 forge (@100% +1 Attack)" but in this build you dont take gas ti'll 19 and 20, plus wait time for the assims to finish and then time to mine the 100 gas needed, seems like +1 wont get started ti'll quite some time after the forge finishes. He means that the second the forge is finished, start +1 Attack upgrade. Right, and the way the build is, that is not possible since you arent taking gas until AFTER the forge is done.
It's a typo. He means @100 gas get +1 weapons.
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Hey, I just wanted to know if this build is still viable, or is there a better variation of this build. I have been going with the nony build for a while and I want to do a better ffe build than I have been. Thanks
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Yes, I do it all the time, and HerO still does it, though it has changed a bit, and many variations and followups have appeared since the build got popular.
I wrote a bunch of them down in a blog for my 1k post: here
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I have about 15 pvz builds i do, all off ffe. I only use this build on the KR server. Different playstyles. I consider myself a pvz specialist and if i use it, its a good build lol
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Is there a HotS modification for this build available (e.g. with the msc)?
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United Kingdom20278 Posts
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EPT
