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[H] Mid-masters, completely stuck ZvP cannot win. - Page 2

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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zazzn
Profile Joined April 2009
Canada54 Posts
November 22 2011 16:15 GMT
#21
btw as the guy above said if it's not a FFE and it's a 1 gate expand roach/ling all in for sure... unless they 3 gate expand they get punished... if FFE on xelnaga roach ling all in.... anything that they can't block they shouldn't be greedy and you need to punish them for that.

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Death to hackers
woralo
Profile Joined November 2011
Netherlands1 Post
November 22 2011 19:56 GMT
#22
My problem with the whole FFE build is not what to do against it, but the fact that it's possible to begin with.

I have been playing SC 1 and 2 from the start. And I can remember zerg being the race that is to fast expand.
Now in SC2 it's protoss which does the expanding versus zerg.
And to me this changes the whole game. This make protoss the race, zerg should be. Why is protoss able to FFE and come out stronger then zerg which should have that role. In SC 1 races had to battle and do their very best to deny zerg's fast expansion. Whilest now protoss doesn't even need to make a real effort. What''s even worse is that protoss can just fast expand and deny zergs natural fe by just placing a probe or pylon in it's building grid. Which sets zerg back some additional time before expanding. Ofcourse you can expand to a non-natural location, but I guess I don't have to explain what the downside about that is. This only delays him further. It's a lott harder for zerg to deny protoss then it is for protoss to deny zerg. Which doesn't make any sense at this point.

Ofcourse you can try to do something against FFE, but it simply should not be this way and I think blizzard should do something about it. Here are the things I am currently trying to do vs FFE.

- 6 pool
Strangely enough 6 pool works like a mirracle versus FFE, but the downside is. It's a gamble. You are never sure if protoss does FFE, and if they don't you're pretty much screwed. So it's not that viable.

- Spine crawler rush
This can work with some good effort, however it's another all in play and you might ending up just killing the wall buildings while protoss still goes on harvesting. So another bad tactic to be using every game. I do sometimes try this when my natural is denied. I've got the minerals and P might have wasted some minerals on a pylon or even a canon at my natural. However it still doesn't work against the better players.

- Overpool
11 pool extractor trick is still something I am trying to balance towards FFE. Sometimes it works, however on maps like metalopolis where buildings oftenly are walled towards protoss' natural it's less effective. If I see P has too many canons up or my zerlings just won't cut it, I will try transitioning into banelings to bust the wall or canons. However this is another all in, considering the amounts of minerals and gas you need to spend on it. I think the key to overpooling versus FFE is not to be scouted. Or at least letting zerg think you're going to macro. If they spot your zerlings or overpool, they will simply put another canon up and you're done for.

- nidus rush
This seems like the ultimate solution and I've won with this many times. but the biggest problem is getting the nidus to pop. Sure in silver, gold and sometimes in plat you can still get this to work. but top players in most leagues wil just spot it and deny your nidus. And if you're nidus is denied, you're pretty much screwed.

- Hydra timing
Another tactic that will or can work some times, but also very risky. 2 base to let's say 12 hydra's and some zerlings or roaches can do the trick, but you have to watch out where the protoss is at. If he has just enough to hold it off, which happens most of the time you are screwed again. However the upside is, you can easily snipe the wall and protoss might nog have that much of an army yet. You might even get to kill his first colossus if he's rushing.

So what can you do, to delay protoss? Because you will need him to be delayed as much as possible.
- Make it look like you're going into agressive play, to get him to build more canons/units/wall off structures.
- Make it look like you are going into macro play which will keep his defense to minimum. How?
Seen at providence there was a hatch cancel into roach aggression, which was beautiful. Too bad zerg lost that match even after that effort, but Naniwa was just fucking sick. The beautiful part about the hatch cancel was the timing of the cancel. It wasn't just canceled after the first scout, but just before being done. Making sure that if scouted again protoss would still think zerg would be all on macro play.

One key element to any of the early timing attacks is to not be scouted or at least not fully. If scouted protoss can easily defend against almost any of the tactics you can imagine. And that's what makes it so unfair imo.

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Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20291 Posts
November 22 2011 20:02 GMT
#23
On November 23 2011 00:58 fubusama wrote:
Here are some options:

vs FFE: (before 7minute mark)

Roach/Ling all-in
Quick 3rd (4 minute)

vs 6/7 gate Rush (~9minute)

Roach w/ Burrow

vs Stargate

Queens, Evo/spores, Drones (drones are the key here)

It's usually a tight battle when those mid-game attacks come from toss, but as long as you're hitting your injects you should be able to just barley hold it; saturate your 3rd then run him over.



6gate can hit well before 9 minutes, if you allow him to warp forward with his first cycle all of his units will be in your base before 8
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
D4V3Z02
Profile Joined April 2011
Germany693 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-22 20:06:24
November 22 2011 20:05 GMT
#24
Against FFE theres:

Proxy hatch, Roach ling rush (with our w/o hatch cancel), early nydus/drop with or w/o hydra and zerg rush kekekekeke

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http://www.twitch.tv/d4v3z02 all your base are belong to overlord
Girondelle
Profile Joined December 2010
France969 Posts
November 22 2011 20:07 GMT
#25
On shakuras you can take the other third, that is closer to the natural, if find it easier to defend.
As for the scouting, park an overlord near his gazes, see when he takes his 3th and 4th gaz. You can send a ling to see if he is upgrading +1, that's a big indicator of heavy gateway play. If you suspect heavy gateway play start making units around 8min10.
I recommend you check the Day[9] daily about starving your opponent between IdrA and HuK, you can copy IdrA's opening, its really great.

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Arisen
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States2382 Posts
November 22 2011 20:32 GMT
#26
I don't know what you're hoping to discover on the TL strategy boards as a masters player you're probably higher ranked than 90% of the people giving advice. Download the MLG rep pack and watch a lot of ret and IdrA games, this kind of eco 6 gate has gotten popular since nony talked about it on SotG. In your games you tend to get your gas pretty early and don't grab that 4th hatch early either. Ret and IdrA both have some really sick 4 hatch roach/ling that holds this kind of pressure pretty well, and you'll most likely get more info out of studying that than reading people post here. gl
"If you're not angry, you're not paying attention"
Slivered Skin
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada347 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-22 21:51:31
November 22 2011 21:51 GMT
#27
My god, so many people here suggesting all-ins it's ridiculous. Doesn't anyone know how to at least get to the midgame against toss anymore?

If you're losing to 7-gate timings, I'm guessing that there's something wrong with your scouting, so I'll actually focus on that while watching the replays.

Game 1 vs PrOpOink: You scout the front, see +1 being researched at roughly the 6 minute mark. That should already be a tip-off that he's going for some kind of timing, as it's extremely early. If you look at his vision in the game, you'll see that it was actually the first place where he invested gas. This allows you to rule out certain stargate-based or early robo timings.

Next, you send in an overlord. You see the cybercore with warpgate being chronoboosted. This is the perfect tell that toss is going for some kind of timing attack. Prepare accordingly. Also, at this stage in the game, you take your lings away from the towers and the front of his base to deal with the zealot but don't but them back. Instead, you sac them for...nothing? However, you did get to see that his entire army was composed of 3 sentries.

You then send in another overlord, see another chrono on his warpgate tech, and see the 3 sentries again. You should absolutely know what's coming at this point. Stargate has been ruled out, robo has mostly been ruled out since he doesn't actually have an immortal/colossus at this stage in the game, which leaves pure gateway, most likely some kind of all-in push. You should really be pumping pure units at this stage (we're at 8:50) but instead you wait until the 10 min mark.

One last thing: you got supply blocked in three different places that game. It really cuts down on your drone production. At the 9 min mark, you had an abyssal 41 drones off of three bases, while in a random replay I pulled of IdrA's he hit 41 drones at the 7:20 mark against roughly the same build.

Game 2 vs festEviliL: Yikes, in this game you grab a quick third completely blind. You don't scout his front to see his expo timing, his unit comp, or anything before you sac your overlord at the 7:15 mark. He could have been going for a nexus-cancel 5-gate, DT expand, you name it - you would have died to it. Scout with your opening lings more.

When you do send your lings and your ovie in, you see 6 sentries off of 2 gasses with +1 getting researched. That accounts for a very large portion of his gas, and chances are he isn't teching at this stage. In my eyes, this is suspicious. After that first poke with the lings, you don't poke any further. You don't try to see his comp, or if he's chronoing +1 or getting his nat gasses. Work on this.

You essentially died to late 4-gate pressure this game. He attacked with units accumulated off of 3 gates, and in my opinion, you could have crushed him with just one more round of units. It all comes down to preparation.

By the way, in this game your drone count was much higher because you only really got supply blocked once, at 26 food. At 9 mins, you had 52 drones. A thing that I noticed this game, though, was that you look at your base too much. Try to look at your base as little as possible, and at your army as much as possible. Keep poking, prodding, scouting, denying scouts, etc.

Hopefully I helped! ^^

EDIT: PLEASE WATCH REPLAYS PEOPLE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THING HOLY >.<
Those most oft mated find love’s motive in a word: inebriated - Get well Violet!! And sC!! T_T
FMJ
Profile Joined February 2011
United States169 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-22 22:32:11
November 22 2011 22:29 GMT
#28
Did you watch the MLG national championship?

If you have or don't care about the outcome:

+ Show Spoiler +

The final was Leenock(Z) vs. Naniwa(P).

Naniwa FFEs EVERY SINGLE GAME.

Leenock even wins vs. Naniwa in a match where he opens 6 pool

Considering that your opponents are no where near Naniwa, and you're nowhere near Leenock, I think there's a lot you can work on before blaming the matchup.


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FLiP491
Profile Joined November 2010
United States124 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-23 00:30:48
November 23 2011 00:15 GMT
#29
so much crazy misinfo in this thread... I don't really wanna comment specifically on what to do vs what because I figure you know that already ie: roaches>xgate... get spores, etc..

but I would suggest playing pvz a little bit in addition to knowing the timings in order to give you a better feel for the matchup... especially in mid masters you can afford to be safe against both of those openings and still be solid

im sure you know when to double ovie scout and speedling scout the front... just don't get discouraged and keep having fun... I would say that the key is to keep track of where his gas is going.. ovies/burrowed lings at his third, lings at the towers and the ramp

it's kinda ironic to me to see this post right now as it seems like in the current metagame z has the uppper hand in zvp o.0
llKenZyll
Profile Blog Joined November 2011
United States853 Posts
November 23 2011 01:39 GMT
#30
This was kind of a biased post.
You just let him run up into your ramp and force field off your third? Dont you have vision of his army? Map control is key.
How can the two stargate build deny your third? I mean lol, a stargate takes 65 second to build and a void ray takes 45 seconds to make. Thats 110. Counting chronoboost, its probably around 80 seconds. So if a hatchery takes 80 seconds to make and 20 second travel time for the void rays, shouldnt your third be up by the time they make two stargates? Thats enough time to make spores, isnt it?
And BTW, I only respond to one startgate with Hydras. Two stargatse then I get a few hydras and then I transition into mass corruptors. Not only do Corruptors do nicely against phoenix and are pretty decent against void rays with focus fire and corruption, they deal with the inevitable colossus transition.
I had trouble with a 7gate but I have mastered it and I can safely say the best response is speed +1 Roaches after you drone up a crapton. Make three spines at the ramp of your third if you're really afraid of a force field off and start making mass speedroach. Make sure you know where his army is most of the time. If you dont, then he may try that bullcrap where he force fields off your third. Just make two pairs of lings and sac a ling to see where his army is every now and then.

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http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/nd6nd/tang_in_his_natural_habitat/
Kornholi0
Profile Joined November 2010
Canada634 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-23 09:23:37
November 23 2011 01:52 GMT
#31
Tbh what I've found lately that works almost 100% of the time is a mass expand mass mutalisk mass spine crawler play, basically you turtle on 3 bases (if your third isn't readily available try and sneak it across the map, if its scouted oh well it isn't "that" crucial for this build". Of course you want 3 bases eventually.

Open 11 overpool and 18 hatch, what I like to do, is hide my lings if he hasn't scouted me yet, and wait for him to try the cannon rush. Generally the protoss will scout the hatch assume 15 hatch and cannon rush. This means they will save up some money which isn't going into a nexus.
Best time to show lings is about halfway through the pylon being morphed so he doesn't suddenly throw down more than you can chew.

After denying whatever he does take your 3rd IMMEDIATELY I'm talking 18 hatch 20 hatch practically as soon as you can afford it. Then just drone. You should be able to make about 60 drones before any aggression (well I mean like 7g or pheonix) pops. If he does 2 stargate pheonix you can instead of getting spire get hydralisk and go roach hydra.

After you get your natural up throw down 1 gas and a roach warren and a evo chamber for safe measures. Once you get about 50 food throw down 3 more gas. You should be on 4 gas on 3 base with about 50~ drones.

Now you make about 6-10 spines (less if he goes something airish, more if he goes something gateway heavy).
Once you get 3 base saturation
make mutalisk with gas and spines with minerals (well drones first obviously)

Then just make sure he doesns'tmove out and if he does go for base race

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TheGreenMachine
Profile Joined March 2010
United States730 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-23 05:06:27
November 23 2011 04:49 GMT
#32
One thing that helped me against forge fe is more efficient droning. Doing overlords at specific times, queens at specific times, sending a queen to the new hatch before that hatch finishes. Practice droning against the AI until you figure out a way thats very efficient (and fit in tumors where needed). Theres some improvising in most builds incase he delays your hatch or forces some lings, but for the most part you can use the same overlord timings every game.

Getting an evo by a certain time, and scouting timing of his gases combined with scouting if hes getting quick +1 or not. Then scouting the timing of his 2 gases in his natural. Later suiciding at about 8:30-9:00 is a good time to check if fast +1 turns into +2 blink, collosus, or w/e else.

My personal style is ling roach into 3/4 base muta with 4 hatches. I make a macro hatch if he opens up with voidray or a hatch at another base if he opens up with fast +1. (to clarify I mean fast +1 that would delay regular stargate timing)

Ofcourse I could be wrong but thats just how I like to do it :D. I also open 14 pool 15 or 16 hatch if that matters to you.

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Don't forget to get everyone you know to play HOTS so this game we love called Starcraft will live on. Every little bit helps. ^^
madzumo
Profile Joined February 2011
United States10 Posts
November 23 2011 05:53 GMT
#33
On November 22 2011 23:01 Rebs wrote:
http://sc2casts.com/cast6367-Naniwa-vs-Leenock-2-Best-of-3s-MLG-Providence-2011-Finals

a pretty straightforward way to dealing with ffe. Greedy protoss deserves to have this done to them, and I feel like you absolutely have to be aggressive. And make them spend there money elsewhere than tech and probes or risk dying. People keep calling it semi all in or cheese but thats a bit unfair considering doing anything to get ahead on macro that isnt safe is just as cheesy.

Either way going the 1 base roach pressure/all in means you control the temp of where the protoss spends his money and additionally keeps him on his heels since he has no scouting for a while.



WTF? Are you retarded? How on earth is this an example of punishing a greedy Protoss?? Leenock didn't do any damage & lost due to his move that set him back.

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He who controls the SPICE. Controls the Universe.
mrGRAPE
Profile Joined November 2011
Singapore293 Posts
November 23 2011 06:12 GMT
#34
On November 22 2011 23:01 Rebs wrote:
http://sc2casts.com/cast6367-Naniwa-vs-Leenock-2-Best-of-3s-MLG-Providence-2011-Finals

a pretty straightforward way to dealing with ffe. Greedy protoss deserves to have this done to them, and I feel like you absolutely have to be aggressive. And make them spend there money elsewhere than tech and probes or risk dying. People keep calling it semi all in or cheese but thats a bit unfair considering doing anything to get ahead on macro that isnt safe is just as cheesy.

Either way going the 1 base roach pressure/all in means you control the temp of where the protoss spends his money and additionally keeps him on his heels since he has no scouting for a while.




Everyone thinking about bashing this poster should realize that the page automatically plays the FIRST GAME (where Leenock loses).

To see the all in build that Leenock does and successfully wins, you have to check out games 2,3,4 and 5 which are right below game 1.

Please start scrolling!
Starcraft 2 and eSports enthusiast. https://twitter.com/#!/mrGRAPETV | http://mrgrapetv.wordpress.com/
OptimusYale
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Korea (South)1005 Posts
November 23 2011 06:41 GMT
#35
Im having similar problems at Platinum (sea) and gold (KR). One thing I found is that after a FFE most toss try to follow with a stargate follow through. To stop this I got 4 queens on 2 hatches, and 3 spores. Build a hydra den and build about 10 hydras and 10 roaches (for any gateway support). Push creep alot to allow faster movement towards their 3rds and have an ovie behind the minerals of their natural 3rd choice. Use roach hydra to defend, and if you see them expanding make a round of lings and rally them to their new nexus, position your roaches and hydras where there army will defend and you can catch them mainly unaware.

This helped me alot against toss...dont know if it translates well to higher levels but certainly helps. If you keep scouting and see a robo transition then either drop the main and take out collosus bay, or nydus and do it. Just delay that tech and eventually your army should rape.....

other than that Im pretty lost without going all-in

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Scip
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Czech Republic11293 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-23 07:35:20
November 23 2011 06:57 GMT
#36
Hello, I'll try to add my bit of help here, I'll focus on the game you played against DrSmoke on Shakuras. My credentials: mid/mid high master zerg on EU.

In general I think that your early game macro mistakes cost you that game. The early scout you send is an idea I like, but you really need to focus on blocking that nexus for as long as possible; the loss of minerals from the scout is very noticeable.

When you natural gets pylon blocked and you scout FFE from toss, you should build a hatch at your 3rd base ASAP; you could have built it at either about 3:15 or 3:45, but you built it at 4:25! The second pylon block at your natural delayed your natural, yet you still could have built it at 4:55, but you actually built it at 5:08

The supply block at 26 supply slowed you down by a huge amount, by that point I feel you were extremely far behind. Your inject larva wasn't that good early on either, your queen had 17 extra energy by 6:15.

While your 2 first overlords took their optimal paths, the same can't be said about all the other ones. You should send them at the expansions your opponent is likely to take, and start gooping creep there as soon as lair finishes. While it wasn't factor this game, still is incredibly important.

You should also focus more on your creep spread. Although it is secondary to all these other problems, defending with creep is so much easier (especially that 2 stargate you hate so much! ). You made 4 creep tumors for the whole game, and not at the best places.

Make sure to never have more than 16 drones on minerals at any base, as long as others are not fully saturated. When you have 16 drones on minerals in each base, strongly consider taking 4th base.

Your overall gamesense and timings were good enough, really hard to criticize since you were very far behind at 5:00 already. One very minor thing, don't counterattack with zerglings on Shakuras, it doesn't work haha ;p try to pick off proxy pylons, or at least make his army go back to defend them.

That is all, hope it was helpful. Ask for more advice if you want =)

Edit:
I also very much so disagree with all the posters suggesting 11 overpool 18 hatch. If you want similiar build order to that, 12 pool is better imo. And I like 15 pool even more, while potentially delaying your 2nd base (and even that isn't the case on shakuras, really) the extra minerals that translate into earlier queens = creep is definately worth it.
"It may be pleasurable for some of us to imagine being ravished" - Christopher Hitchens in a debate with feminists RIP 2011 Psalm 2:9 You shall break them with a rod of iron
ixi.genocide
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
United States981 Posts
November 23 2011 07:38 GMT
#37
On November 23 2011 04:56 woralo wrote:
My problem with the whole FFE build is not what to do against it, but the fact that it's possible to begin with.

I have been playing SC 1 and 2 from the start. And I can remember zerg being the race that is to fast expand.
Now in SC2 it's protoss which does the expanding versus zerg.
And to me this changes the whole game. This make protoss the race, zerg should be. Why is protoss able to FFE and come out stronger then zerg which should have that role. In SC 1 races had to battle and do their very best to deny zerg's fast expansion. Whilest now protoss doesn't even need to make a real effort. What''s even worse is that protoss can just fast expand and deny zergs natural fe by just placing a probe or pylon in it's building grid. Which sets zerg back some additional time before expanding. Ofcourse you can expand to a non-natural location, but I guess I don't have to explain what the downside about that is. This only delays him further. It's a lott harder for zerg to deny protoss then it is for protoss to deny zerg. Which doesn't make any sense at this point.
As a lower masters zerg I have been trying out a macro hatch before pool and if i can get away with it a 3 hatch before pool, there isn't really anything the fe toss can do against this (macro hatch that is) and if you can get away with the 3 hatch before pool and get your fourth at like 50f (that's how the injects work out), you have enough larvae to produce anything you want as well as spread creep and drone like a madman, it also gives you an extra hatch to produce queens out of so you aren't caught off guard while getting lair. I like to get a 14 hatch (try for nat), 16 hatch, 16 pool.

Ofcourse you can try to do something against FFE, but it simply should not be this way and I think blizzard should do something about it. Here are the things I am currently trying to do vs FFE.

- 6 pool
Strangely enough 6 pool works like a mirracle versus FFE, but the downside is. It's a gamble. You are never sure if protoss does FFE, and if they don't you're pretty much screwed. So it's not that viable.
You lose when they get first scout

- Overpool
11 pool extractor trick is still something I am trying to balance towards FFE. Sometimes it works, however on maps like metalopolis where buildings oftenly are walled towards protoss' natural it's less effective. If I see P has too many canons up or my zerlings just won't cut it, I will try transitioning into banelings to bust the wall or canons. However this is another all in, considering the amounts of minerals and gas you need to spend on it. I think the key to overpooling versus FFE is not to be scouted. Or at least letting zerg think you're going to macro. If they spot your zerlings or overpool, they will simply put another canon up and you're done for.
11p/18h can be fairly economical and can transition into both a 7rr and heavy macro play as well as early lings, In theory this build should be looked at quite a bit more.

One key element to any of the early timing attacks is to not be scouted or at least not fully. If scouted protoss can easily defend against almost any of the tactics you can imagine. And that's what makes it so unfair imo.





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elliminist
Profile Joined November 2010
Japan121 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-23 08:38:50
November 23 2011 08:30 GMT
#38
You don't seem to have a game plan in ZvP. For example, every time you lose your third, you just have this period where you are not really doing anything and just spending money without an overall plan. For example, your goal is 'get a midgame advantage by getting fast third and drone it up.

Protoss kills third. Midgame advantage gone.

Then what?

Nothing wrong with your opening btw if you want to set up for a fast third. 11overpool's third is ridiculously late compared to 14 pool 16 hatch opening.

I will give you some suggestions after I analyse the individual replays.

-

dTox v ProPoinK

- Your third timing and natural timing were alright, considering that you had to knock out the pylon.
- You mined so much gas so early after speed for no apparent reason (besides making defensive roaches?)
- After you lost your third, you follow up with...Roaches and lings?! Why not expand again? Why not double expand If he's retained his army then there's absolutely no reason to attack into that, that's where Protoss' strength lies, in his army.
- What did your Roach-Ling army do in the end? Were they there to 'Keep you alive' or there to 'win'?
- You let all your drones die off right after you were making army. This means you need to use more larva for drones which are not units. Larva management is suffering because you aren't preserving your units. Once you hit mid-late game, larvae management isn't such a big deal but in mid-game larvae management is so important it makes or breaks the midgame.
- You never got back into the game because you didn't seem to be interested in just catching up with economic risks (If you lose an expo, double expo in response. If you lose all your drones, make twice as many drones etc).

dTox v DrSmoke

- You let him pylon block your natural twice =_=. I don't even know how that was possible or how you let it happen. It shouldn't, just somehow ensure he can't do it.
- You cut a tonne of drones for army (You started unit production at 50 drones, waaaaaay too early), this meant that you were unable to sustain production from your bases in the midgame.
- You made army which had no real purpose - you were too blind aggressive with them and they didn't even guarantee a kill on that Protoss ball which killed your third.
- If you're going to 2 base, at least make a macro hatchery.
- Your unit composition wasn't strong enough to deal with his pushes.

dTox v FestEvilil

- You fell significantly far behind in the opening after misreading his build horribly. The speedling pressure is supposed to kill off a Protoss who goes 1gate expand, not 3 gate expand. A 3 gate expand is safe against Speedling pressure.
- Too aggressive, you lost a tonne of units on a Protoss defense to deal no damage.
- The counter to offensive forcefielding is to use static defense. Spines actually prevent sentries from overextending themselves into your territory. Another way is to also extend your creep way past your base, this means they have to coinflip whenever they're on creep that you haven't got hydras or banelings or way too many speedlings.
- No armor upgrades until lategame. Watching +1 lings and +2 roaches fight a +2 atk +1 armor Protoss ball is just painful...You can't even keep the lings alive long enough to attack twice.
- You were underteched in the final engagement. Roach-Ling-Muta is actually a very strong mobile composition to harrass with...but you weren't doing that. You were trying to force damage against a Protoss who was turtling. If you know they're turtling, just drone up instead; Force them to come to you, and when they do your harrassment might actually work.


dTox v Lead
- This is the game you scouted double stargate (Good job on that). However you didn't react at all to that information, and just relied on spores (not queens) to defend your bases. Building 4 spores per base is not a correct reaction to a double stargate build. You need to tech to hydras / spire as fast as you can and actually deflect with 5-6 queens (+ 1-2 spores) until they come out. Spores are meant to prevent phoenixes from getting too close to the queens to lift, not to kill Voidrays. Unfortunately it seems like your poor gas management meant that you were spending it all on roaches instead of teching to fast lair to open your options.
- You took enormous damage from the Void harrass and your third was delayed so long you were economically behind. Once again, no attempt at an economic risk or timing attack to get back into the game.
- If you had better creep spread, it's actually possible to make what is normally a 'risky' expo a safer one by connecting it. Your third was so risky for so long.
- Did you know corruptors actually lose in 1:1 combat against Phoenix? 14 dmg at 1.9 atk spd (200hp) against 12 dmg at 1.1 atk speed (180hp). Did you also know that voidrays can beat them at a 1.5:1 ratio? Sad, isn't it?
- You could have also built twice as many corruptors if you knew his army would be skewed that hard to stargates and collosus.
- Then he just derped and made whatever weird army he wanted to win. But heck, Terrans get away with that all the time. It's your job to manage that unit composition imbalance (not in terms of fair/not fair, but in terms of too lopsided to one advantage).

-

Things to think about
- Overlord spread (Yes it is annoying that stargate openings just absolutely deny overlord spreads, but it's not excuse not to do it). You could've deflected a warp prism drop altogether if you had proper overlord spread (instead of letting it land down and run back to deal with it)

- Creep spread (The further out it is, the more area you have to defend on)

- Overlord timings (Invest in more overlords if you know the timing you're sacrificing them)

- Gas management (The 1 gas mining isn't doing you anything into the midgame. You're still losing your third to random stuff. You might as well be better off not mining that gas and making them minerals first)

- Unit composition (Think about what unit composition you're going, and how you are making that composition useful. Roach Ling is good at mobile pressure against gateway units, but loses to tech like stargates and robo. Muta-ling are great against Robo compositions but have trouble with blink/zealot archon and stargate openings.

- Too much time spent complaining. You'd be surprised how much longer you can drag a game out or reverse a situation if you keep your teeth clenched and focus on sending reinforcements despite fighting what appears to be a losing battle. A lot of high level ZvP used to be about making the protoss engaging 3 maxed armies worth from their natural, to the middle of the map to the zerg natural before they could even have a shot at dealing economic or tech damage. Sometimes it looks so hopeless but it's on the 3rd or 4th wave of reinforcements the Protoss army runs dry. This is often the case where sentries are involved.

- Don't play their game. Those protosses you played were just 2 base all-ining, and you should be forcing the game to extend to points where their mechanics fail them. Unless they're GM I don't think their game plan and macro are that well developed to every point in the game. You should look past that point of 'deflecting' in the midgame, and think how things will pan out even if midgame is a stalemate.

-

I've also included in my post two of my own ladder replays against master level Protoss. You can tell the Protosses have a plan right until after they succeed their plan...and then they fall apart because they don't know what to do.

http://replayfu.com/download/d0ee51402add002802cb5fbe2cd15c00

I get 7 gated and lose my third. However despite that I don't give it up without the guaranteeing that his army dies out in the open.

After that I just double expand to get back into the game economically, and force the Protoss to overbuild stalkers while I drone behind it. At some point I decide to bring my roaches back so they won't get ambushed by a gateway ball.

After that it's just setting up economic harrass and baiting forcefields while building up a ground army to overrun the Protoss timing push.

I probably could've saved the drones at the gold but I'll do that next game.


http://replayfu.com/download/KLLcVq

I get pylon walled off in the early game, and instead of just raging about imba etc, I just focus on converging back to the midgame. I know however I cannot be droned as perfectly as I could have been if I wasn't blocked, but I will be cutting drones for units in the general timings of my opponent's tech timings.

After scouting the blink allin, I also prepare for the DT harrass which is a natural tech divergence. His blink pressure fails horribly since I don't engage wastefully and then it's just me being ballsy and expanding whenever and wherever the hell I want while droning to ideal (80+). From there on it's over as I just attempt to stream reinforcements against his gateway ball (Zealot sentry stalker archon) and I eventually overrun it on the third wave of defense.

From there I just sit back because I know I'm the one enormously far ahead, and he does try to push again. Funnily enough, Protoss units are really good, and he pushes me right back to my natural before I just tech switch and overrun him with 4k/4k in my bank.

Mass spine wall in the middle bought me so much time too.

Ends with Protoss tears, though I can't say it's justified because his mechanics sucked.
Do you think you're really entitled to anything in this world?
zatic
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
Zurich15328 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-11-23 09:30:10
November 23 2011 09:29 GMT
#39
Sorry for all the red paint OP. This forum apparently has reached another low point. Thanks to the selected few who took the time to watch the replays and actually give advice.

Everyone: If you don't watch the replays DO. NOT. POST. IN. A. [H]ELP. THREAD. You will be warned or banned.
ModeratorI know Teamliquid is known as a massive building
zazzn
Profile Joined April 2009
Canada54 Posts
November 23 2011 10:33 GMT
#40
Hello Moderator who gave me a warning for actually giving helpful advice... Thanks for the warning but before you tell me to watch replays ensure that they where even there when I replied. Clearly he edited since the last time I posted and at the time I initially replied there was no replays in place.
Death to hackers
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