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They don't take their other gases, that's the thing. And I already stated that eventually, 2 base Toss will grab all of their gas, because they can support it. What I say about taking gas, is about Toss taking gas before 8:00. You should be sac'ing your overlord around 7:30, wondering whether you can drone up and tech up or have to make units. After about 8:00, you are already either going to go with units or drones, your lair is almost done so you can get an overseer to scout... it becomes less important trying to read what toss is doing, unless you still don't know. But you should know enough by 8:00.
Toss can do anything after their 4 gate +1. Use your overseer to find out. No, lair won't be done by 8:00, but after you've held their 4 gate +1, lair should be close to done, and you can use an overseer to see what decision they made
You see... like... you see no gas at toss natural, so you make a 6:30 warren. You aren't sure if it's 4 gate+1 or 6/7/8 gate. Then, 4 zealots hit you at 8:00. Now, it's obvious what's going on. As a reaction, you maybe add more roaches if you didnt start them already, but you drone up and get some tech, because you know that Toss only has 4 gateways, and no tech.
What is Toss going to do? Who knows, who cares. It doesn't matter. You know enough to make a couple roaches to hold the 4 gate aggression, and that as long as you got those roaches on time, you can drone up hard, and tech up hard to lair. Then, when lair is done, get an overseer, and see what's up, and what you should do now that you have 75 drones on 3 bases with lair tech and the requisite upgrades (speed, an upgrade, burrow or overlord speed if thats your thing, etc). Then, you decide if you want to go spire, or infestor, or whatever.
The timings are arbitrary, and I think irrelelvant. I don't think it's something to add, quite frankly. You know 100% that toss is 4 gating once the 4 gate hits at 8:00, and you know 100% it's either 4 gate or 6/7/8 gate when toss has no gas with that overlord that is by his nat and it's ~7:00 and you thinking "hm, wtf is going on, I know i can drone up for sure to 8:00, but I'm not sure if I need what to do after that point".
That's all you really need to know... that he went 4 gate... and you got the roaches to defend adequately... and then you just drone up hard and tech hard with your advantage and use the overseer to figure out what toss is going to do next... if you can figure out what he's doing because you counted his probes in the natural, great. more power to you.
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i feel like this isn't that hard to understand... but i feel like you don't understand. then i make a huge post. who cares what toss is doing, you held his 4gate +1, drone up and tech up hard. it doesnt matter what he's doing, the correct response to holding 4 gate +1 is droning and teching super hard until lair finishes. Then you send overseer to figure out what's up.
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Awesomesauce, yo
Don't have much to say other than thanks :D
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Damn....
Awesome guide. Thanks so much. I used to have a large amount of trouble with ZvP. <3 for making this. Hope to see more soon^^
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I'm having a hard time getting reps/vods right now. It's extremely time consuming to try to watch every zvp in gsl, most of them aren't good textbook examples.
I list the reps I could use, in the changelog. If anyone recalls a certain game that went in that way, please msg me.
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I added a rep of me going fast third vs 3 gate expand, against some sucker who did it against me on ladder.
He was probably bad, but man the metagame has really evolved... I remember I used to insist that 3 gate expand was just such a better build than FFE. I think I said that because I saw 2 pro games, that really stuck out, where zerg tried to go fast third vs 3 gate expand, and got raped. It may have been a combination of the map (XNC, rocks blocking away the third...) and just people not knowing how to play back then i guess.
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Very well written guide. Nice job!
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Completely changed my ZvP for the better, thanks!
I don't know whether this question has been asked before but how would you suggest transitioning from muta-ling aggression to hive tech? (Preferably brood-lords) I can't really see a timing window to make drones (for the spine crawlers) and keeping a healthy ling/muta count.
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Wow the Lord of Lies AND a ZvP expert 
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Thanks for the great update!
Extremely helpful as usual. 
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Great Belial!
thanks a bunch man, tried it tonight and its fixed my whole outlook on the MU
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Wow the Lord of Lies AND a ZvP expert
Haha, thanks. I forgot what my name meant.
Thanks for the great update!
Extremely helpful as usual.
Thanks!
Great Belial!
thanks a bunch man, tried it tonight and its fixed my whole outlook on the MU
Thanks! What specifically did you find helpful? Have you applied anything in the guide, that you didn't do before?
I'd be interested in some constructive criticism, as well as feedback. I'm kind of looking for the following:
1. Do you agree with everything? This guide is supposed to be a guide on basics, I tried to leave out personal opinion as much as possible. I think that everything in this guide is standard, and I explicitly state when it's my personal opinions coming in (eg: I think some pros like 2 base lair vs gateway expands, but I stated I think 3 base w/speed is better, don't make infestors vs 2 base toss, but I still explain when they are useful). People should not be directing questions towards me, just to anyone who can answer them. I hope that everyone agrees with everything stated here, it's other things that are personal opinion (eg I like going banelings and staying on lair tech and mass muta instead of going to hive, I like to end the game with roach/infestor instead of going hive, I like roach/corruptor so I can transition quickly into broodlords without infestor support, etc).
2. Do you like the format? Anything that could make it better? Zatic said he prefers an open style guide instead of spoilers, but I really think spoilering is the way to go. I wish I could put in more pictures, I just don't know what (even that inject pic is kind of... general)
3. What has helped you the most? Anything in the guide that you've applied?
4. Anything I miss?
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What do you do against an 8 gate +1 all-in that is at your 3rd by 8:30 with 8 stalkers 7 zealots and warpgates almost back off cooldown? I just got crushed from what (I believe) was Golden offracing as protoss. I know I didnt play perfectly, and I blame that on the fact that I havent played much in a long while... but it seems to counter this build really damned well (that and hes kinda good).
http://drop.sc/171466
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^ I don't think you were playing a pro...
Your APM is an average of 20 too. While APM isn't really that important, I can already see you missing some critical things. You don't correct your first overlord to go towards the opponent's base as soon as you find out where he spawned, and that he didn't spawn at the location your overlord went. In fact you send zero overlords towards his base at all. I have no idea how you are supposed to figure anything out by this, but you are definitely not going to know in time that he's doing an all-in. I really can't see you winning if you don't have an overlord by his natural. That's all you needed to know - to see zero gas at his nat, but you didn't do that. If you aren't prepared for such a heavy all-in, there is no way for you to defend it in time.
You have to really cut tech and econ to defend an 8 gate, and just having an overlord over his natural's gas would have told you he was doing something that requires a 6:30 roach warren with immediate roach/ling production when the warren pops. It would not be natural to make these decisions unless you saw no gas at the toss natural. You make no attempt to scout. You need to seriously cut workers and drone production to stop a 7 rax all-in or a 4 gate right? Well, you aren't scouting in any way that would lead you to make the necessary cuts to survive.
You get supply blocked at 36.
You make your 28 overlord wayyyyyyyyy too early. This is a really basic macro problem. You avoided a supply block, so this would be acceptable in platinum, diamond, but you are in (low) masters now. You really shouldn't be making such a gaping macro mistake as to make your 28 overlord completely at the wrong time. This is really, really basic. It doesn't matter how good or bad or new you are, every zerg should be making the 28 overlord at 25-27, ideally 26 (unless your natural was taken super late or you were planning to make a building at 27-28, like a roach warren, evo, spine, or gas). I can't stress enough how your macro is already suffering, I'd say this cuts you down by 2 drones then and there.
At 23 you are banking money because you aren't spending larva either. I don't know what this is about, but you really shouldn't be making such basic mistakes. You aren't making probes. This is a problem. You actually let that larva lay around for about 15 seconds, and the 2nd larva for 5. What is going on here?
This may be an issue of your 20 apm. I don't know how you are in masters with 20 apm. Sorry. APM really isn't that big an issue, but bronzes have more than 20 apm. Do you have some sort of handicap, or were you preoccupied? That's fine, just spam that sdsdsdsdsd at the start against FFE. You need to get those drones out.
Late on 2nd inject. Not too big a deal, but it's little... irritating, I suppose.
You just always have idle larva. From about 24 supply onwards the rest of the game, you have idle larva. This is something that is easier for T/P to analyze (no worker being produced, nothing being produced at rax, missing wg) than it is for Z (idle larva counter is fairly new), but you need to start watching your reps and watching how long you have idle larva for. Just watch your reps, with the units tab open, and see if you ever have larva. You should never have larva.
You get supply blocked at 36/36. Not the worst, but you made that overlord at 34. I'd recommend making it at 32 or 33. Not the biggest deal, but since you are in masters, this is important.
You make a lair without scouting if Toss was doing some sort of gasless all-in... like 8 gate.
That's basically why you lost. Not to mention no ling speed started yet, no roach warren started yet. I don't see you winning.
That's really all there is to it. Some basic macro problems that are really a big part of why you lost, but you not scouting and making blind decisions is bad. Making a 7:00 roach warren, standard. 2 gas at 6:00, standard. Taking a third, 3 queens, standard.
Making a lair? You can't do that until you make sure the opponent isn't gasless at his natural. In such cases, you have to start ling speed and roach production before lair. Really, I'd say going lair with your first 100 gas is an autoloss to some gasless toss builds - you can survive +1 4 gate pressure maybe if you go lair with the first 100 gas as long as you get roaches asap from a 6:30 warren and probably threw a spine up, but you can't survive a 6/7/8 gate all-in.
Just scout. Not better, just scout. At all. Clean up your macro too, it's questionable you would have held even if you did know exactly what was going on, and responded correctly. (61 is probably the lowest supply you can be without actually automatically losing because you are so far behind...).
On another note - your opponent executed his build quite well. At exactly 8:00 he was warping in. If he was good, he would have been on your creep and pressuring with his zealot/zealot/stalkers at 8:00, but oh well. He did a build, he didn't execute it like a pro, but he executed it cleanly and competently, and his macro was solid. He basically just played better than you, as bad as that sounds in a game where absolutely nothing happened up until 8:30 and zero scouting occurred on both sides. But the favor in those sorts of games goes to the guy doing an all-in against someone who is being extremely greedy.
You can't just drone up against a 4 gate and never scout, and make decisions that must be made only when ruling out a 4 gate. Similiarly, you can't just drone up hard against a 6/7/8 gate all-in and do things like make lair and not get ling speed without first ruling out a 6/7/8 gate all-in.
By the end of the game, your APM was in the 30's while his was 100. He definitely wasn't pro, the average APM of low masters is about 80ish, sometimes up to 100.
Everything I say on how to handle such an all-in is in my guide. I even have a pro VOD example on how to hold such an all-in. All the information you need is quite clear in the guide.
And no, a 8 gate +1 does not counter a fast third at all. What it does counter, is someone who just doesn't scout at all and blindly plays greedy. A 4 gate does not counter someone who takes their natural, but it does counter someone who doesn't start preparing defenses by, at the latest, 35 supply (really, I'd say 30 supply is when you need to start cutting against a 4gate, especially on maps that are wide open).
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I really appreciate the huge reply, but I was just looking for a generic response for future games. I already said I know I made mistakes as I havent played in weeks, so telling me to correct those werent really needed. I mean, in the guide it says to cut drone production at 8 minutes given what I scouted (an 8 gate all in, though the guide doesnt mention +1 or stalkers in such a build) and I did just that, and he had units basically all over my base by then and I didnt think that even if I corrected mistakes that an 8 minute cut-off would be suitable. Scouting something like that perhaps I should be starting units at 7:40 in the future? Would there be enough roaches and lings to hold it off?
On an aside, dont look at my APM... dont even bother. I dont spam at all (I have issues with my wrists, so I prefer not to spam) so my APM in the early stages of the game is quite low. In a 15-20 minute game the average goes up to 100 (which means its higher than that if you exclude the early game low APM).
Also, he may not be the korean Golden, but hes definitely up there considering he was grandmaster in past seasons and has replays winning against dimaga.
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Well I can't say anything better than what's spelled out in the guide on how to handle it. But I'll reply to your points
1. I slightly edited the guide because of +1 4gate timing pressure at 8:00. Where against 6/7/8 gate all-ins you can get away with a 7:15 roach warren and then just making units after 8:00, with +1 4gate, you really need to make that roach warren at 6:30 and make those roaches at 7:30 or you'll take heavy losses (a spine can buy time if you made your roach warren later, but any other response that doesn't clearly leave you behind, like 'yea i survived but i lost a bunch of drones or my third or my queen and units', is suboptimal, like massing slowlings from the 6:45 mark or making a ton of spines at 7:00 and hoping he doesn't walk around them or to another base).
You really just need to see if he took gas. If he didn't, you need to make that 6:30 roach warren and make roaches when it pops. If he doesn't hit you with 4 zealots and obviously only 4 warp gates online, not 6/7/8, at 8:00, then you can maybe take your lair or more drones instead of more units, but if it's not at 8:00 but rather at 8:30, you will have to stick with 100% unit production.
If it was a perfect world and you got an overlord in, and saw he made 6/7/8 gates, not 4, yea, then make that 7:15 roach warren and drone up to 8:00, then make units. If it's not a perfect world, oh well, he's so all-in, the fact you went 45 seconds earlier roach warren will hardly be an issue because you hold.
I'm sorry that the guide didn't reflect this earlier on, and that I wrote off +1 4gate pressure, but you can see a lot of people were concerned about 4 gate +1 and that you really need roaches against it, and I did eventually edit it, as well as admit I was wrong. There are VOD examples of both builds that gasless toss can go, 6/7/8 gate and 4 gate +1.
2. Scouting things like a spinning forge or a stalkers are just hints, but there are 2 problems with doing so:
1)It does not definitively tell you anything (he could get a stalkers or +1 for any opening, and he can not get an upgrade or stalker and go for 6/7/8 gate all-in still, such as no-upgrade 7 gate all-in
2. You can't reliably scout these things. Toss can hide the stalker inside his base right until he pushes out, which would then be too late for you to react, and wasting lings to die to run up a ramp to see if his forge is spinning, is not worth the cost.
All you had to do to definitively scout what was going on, was see he had no gas at his natural. That's all you had to know, to know enough to go "Oh, I should get ling speed instead of lair with my first 100 gas, and I should get a 6:30 roach warren and start pumping units when the roach warren pops, and if I hold, I end up way ahead of Toss that I can almost always close the game if I respond perfectly, and after reading Belial's Comprehensive Guide to Everything ZvP!, I know what the perfect responses are!"
3. Yes, you did cut drone production, but I wouldn't say that was good decision making on your part. You were 100% blind to what toss was doing, for all you know he could have been going double stargate, in which case making roaches at 8:00 would be a bad choice. Furthermore, you really got punished because you went lair and skipped ling speed, and you really didn't make enough units. I don't think you started 100% unit production at 8:00 though, but whatever.
4. You didn't scout anything. By the time you sent an overlord in, or saw his stalker had +1, you had well already started lair and neglected ling speed. It was too late. You realize the +1 is timed to finish when he's actually attacking right?
You also never saw his stalker, i don't know why you say that. The first protoss unit you saw besides a probe, was 10+ stalkers and zealots in your third. You didn't even know he was breaking the rocks at your third.
5. I told you what to do. Send your first overlords over to Toss' base. You should re-read the section I have on scouting toss (it's been updated as well). I could really say the #1 reason you lost the game was because you never re-corrected your initial overlord to go to Toss' natural's gas. I highly doubt you would have held even if you knew exactly what was coming, because of your macro, I really do, but since you are probably aware of your macro deficiencies, and because that guy was obviously a much better player (i dont care if you weren't warmed up, he had triple the APM of you, and in general, evenly skilled ZvP, Z tends to average about 20-30 more average APM than the Toss throughout the game), I'll just say you really had no chance when you had no clue what Toss was doing, and 100% what you needed to know would have been revealed by having that initial overlord, over his natural's gas.
I mean, do you just 100% lost to double stargate and DTs? You really never made any effort to scout until it was too late. You sent an overlord toward his base (and you sent that overlord from your main, it wasn't even an overlord that was prepared next to his base!) AFTER you decided to not get ling speed, not get an earlier roach warren, and had started lair.
let me break it down like this: Right before you get 100 gas, you need to scout for:
1. Does toss have gas? = Do I need to get ling speed first, or can I get lair first?
2. Sac an overlord and see his base is full of gateways or is empty = make some roaches when warren pops, to making only drones against double stargate.
6. I will look at your APM. It's not that important, but considering you are masters, yea, it's kind of relevant. If you had a very low APM of 50 or 60, I would not have mentioned it. But your opponent had 99 average APM throughout the game, and you had 30.
I mean let's look at the very, very obvious consequences of this:
1. You had idle larva all the time. No drone production, low supply.
2. You didn't scout at all, you didn't even bother to redirect your initial overlord to his base when you realized where he spawned
3. You lost your scouting worker to a probe or something as equally silly...
4. You didn't realize he was breaking the rocks to your third
5. You didn't have overlords around his base, to be ready to sacrifice at the 7:00 mark, instead of sending an overlord from your main at 8:00 mark.
6. No ling in front of his base to see him push out
7. Just zero scouting at all.
It's not about spamming. I don't spam at all either, and my average APM according to sc2gears is about 151 (that's not the sc2 APM, i think sc2 apm is like 80-90), and EAPM is 101, so that's very little spamming (ranked against everyone I've played on ladder, only 2 people have a higher APM than me while having an equal or higher EAPM, the overwhelming majority only have higher APM because their EAPM, useful actions, is total crap and they spam a lot, or .. well that's it. I guess I'm a bit faster than most people, and I don't spam). But that Toss didn't spam at all, and his apm was over 90 (sc2 apm, although that's higher than my sc2 apm except in tense zvt games).
You had 30 apm, and for the majority of the game, it was 20. I don't think you realize how low that is. That is what bronze-gold players have. I get you don't spam, if you spammed it would be higher. But I don't think it's really possible to execute basic macro without at least 50 apm, 60 with zerg (day9's words, not mine). 60 APM is not considered high at all.
Whatever. It's fine. We can't fix your APM overnight, and spamming won't solve the problem. Let me just put it this way:
PUT A GODDAMN OVERLORD BY A TOSS NATURAL'S GAS. Ideally, the first one you start with, as soon as you find out where Toss spawned. Your lack of APM is what caused this, your lack of any thought to scout is what cemented it.
Also, he may not be the korean Golden, but hes definitely up there considering he was grandmaster in past seasons and has replays winning against dimaga.
cool. If you want to rationalize the loss by saying he's a ladder hero, instead of focusing that you could have very easily held if you just had an overlord by his natural's gas, that's fine.
edit: please don't take it that i'm harsh here. I'm really not trying to be mean, although I'm sure I've probably pissed you off by now. Please understand that what may seem like aggression, is really just my attempt to stress how easy some of these problems could be to solve for you. You did okay, really if you had an overlord by his natural, realized he was doing some sort of 8-8:30 gateway aggression that would very much put him super far behind if he doesn't do damage, and thus skip lair in favor of ling speed and mass roaches, you would have just won the game.
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Thanks for providing me the timings on different scout opportunities. Needed timings a lot!
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On May 04 2012 20:56 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +Also, he may not be the korean Golden, but hes definitely up there considering he was grandmaster in past seasons and has replays winning against dimaga. cool. If you want to rationalize the loss by saying he's a ladder hero, instead of focusing that you could have very easily held if you just had an overlord by his natural's gas, that's fine.
I am not trying to "rationalize" the loss. He is 58-2 this season and he has been grandmaster before and was zerg in previous seasons and beats dimaga with zerg. If you think he is a ladder hero, then he is one hell of a ladder hero.
Little bits of your response like this (and the apm thing, which you hugely overstate the importance of and hugely misunderstand for the first ~6 minutes of a macro game, like I say I average 100 in games that are 15 minutes or longer... which means my average when I have stuff going on is 130+) are why I do not like your response.
EDIT: SC2gears has his apm at 200 btw, or 277 BW apm depending on which setting you want to use
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,You didn't lose because the guy was amazing. You lost because you made zero effort to scout. If an overlord was by his naturals gas, which I even state is the number 1 priority to do when going fast third (only behind taking a third in terms of importance), you would havve gotten ling speed instead of lair, and a 630 roach warren, and you would have been prepared.
I'm not saying your macro wasn't good. I'm saying your macro was horrible. Whatever, we all screw up, but you need to understand that your complete fail at your 3rd and 4th overlords is completely unacceptable. I don't know why you write these off, these are mistakes you should never see in diamond. Its a big deal. You basically got supply blocked with your 3rd overlord. That's insane.
I question that you would have held at all if you knew wat was up, given your macro. There were lots of smaller mistakes in your macro, but Id say fix that 3rd and 4th overlord, put an overlord by his naturals gas, and you would have easily won that game. Even against a ladder hero of that calibre. These aren't hard things to do. Anyone can make these fixes overnight.
That's great your APM is higher in other games. You already stated that you were having an off game. And look, we all do. I'm just tellling you what I saw. If your APM was where it normally is, according to what you are telling me, then you should win easily. I just don't think with 20apm, you can pull off a fast third build by constantly making workers and overlords and setting an overlord by his main and nat. And obviously, as the rep shows, your low APM was a part of your loss - you constantly had idle larva, you constantly made overlords at the wrong time, you never scouted, you didn't even move the initial overlord you start with when it went to the wrong base.
The low APM was why your supply was so ridiculously low at the 8:00 mark. You just never made drones.
I don't know what you don't like... you can watch your rep, see you averaged 20 apm and know you were off that game, and just go 'doh' and move on. I don't think the loss should be as confusing as it is was to you. You played against someone with 3x the apm of yours, and your apm was at 20! 50 is low apm, 20 is just odd. But okay, you were having an off game. Armed with new knowledge, you will beat any ex-GM with even 20 apm on an off day who tries to do a 7 gate allin next time.
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Its just odd that you are being so defensive about a game where you know you wrere completely off your game, and your oponent was clearly above your level. I think most people wouldn't think twice of the game, I wouldn't think twice about losing to naniwa doing a 4gate.
My guide, as well as my responses, tell you clearly what you should have done, and what your mistakes were. Even before the major edits, the guide tells you what you should have done. It tells you that going lair, not getting ling speed, and not seeing no gas at his natural, is an autoloss - there's even a pro vod example. Its like you didn't read my guide at all. And then you say the build counters fast third.
Please. Put more effort into it, if you read my guide you would know that you lost because you never made any effort to scout, you didn't put an overlord by his gas, and you made a lair, and you skipped ling speed. I even have a whole section saying to check your supply at 8 minute, and yours was quite low, low enough that it would be hard to win no matter what he did.
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EPT
