[D] PvZ - Establishing third with Skytoss (viable?) - Page…

smokingkipper

United Kingdom7 Posts

June 22 2012 09:44 GMT

#561

Thanks guys, beefing up the third (and to some extent the 2nd) to extravagant levels should be my aim and I think I successfully did this in the game below.

I woke this morning and was itching to try it, here is my first game:

http://drop.sc/202303

I utterly destroyed him (and his a-typical roach push into my Mothership). I am quite happy with my harass here, it does show how people can fall apart to air when they are not used to it. However I did again lose a couple of units.

Fogetaboudit

United States232 Posts

June 22 2012 14:32 GMT

#562

On June 22 2012 07:23 smokingkipper wrote:
First of all, and to qualify what I say below, I am only at Platinum level, so this is absolutely an issue with my execution and not a beef I have with the build.

I would *love* to make this a successful move. (and would LOVE to be able to do something like this in all matchups ;p)

Show nested quote +

On June 22 2012 06:55 HelioSeven wrote:

On June 22 2012 05:43 smokingkipper wrote:
I really do love this build, I have spent a little time trying it and have had about 50% success with it *if I can get far enough into the game*. What I would really like is some replays of the Protoss holding early pressure. The kind that comes around when you have maybe 5 Voids out.

Specifically does anyone have any replays of them holding a successful roach hydra push with several overseers around 12-13 mins?

Does it just come down to Vortexing the Hydra (or half the hydra) army?

I also have difficulty when they open 2 base spire, get several mutalisks out and pepper the flock with a couple of Corruptors.

Also what would you do if they split up half their Hydras, one to go for natural, the other, your third?

Thanks for your time chaps, I would be grateful to have some help!

(also, first post :p )

I just recently lost a game at that 12-13 minute mark to the roach/hydra push designed to take down the third (one of my only losses to Zerg in the last few weeks), but it was pretty retarded on my part because all my voids were away doing harass and he sniped my mothership before I could get the mass recall. By and large, as long as you have 6-10 chargelots in the way, 4 or 5 cannons at your 3rd with the mothership floating over it, and 4 or 5 voids, you should be absolutely fine. Just snipe the overseers and protect the mothership as best you can, you shouldn't even really need the vortex.

Regarding 2 base spire, you should pretty much never lose against that. With the stargate first opening you should always build one phoenix right off the bat and scout. For a 2 base spire build, that scout should give you all the information you need, at which point you should just get out 4-5 phoenixes, chrono boost range and +1, and you should be absolutely fine. You should basically never lose to muta with a stargate first build, even with a few corruptors mixed in (as they are slow as hell and generally can't engage phoenix ever). As a general rule of thumb, void rays are good against corruptors and phoenixes are good against mutas. Bear in mind that phoenixes are the fastest unit in the game, so they should allow you to choose your engagements.

Here is a replay of me losing to Roach Hyrda. I was at my 3rd with my Mothership and all my army, he came along with too many Overseers for me to take out quickly.

http://drop.sc/202108

Is this is a case of my Macro not being up to snuff? I was pumping out 4 Voidrays at a time but was mineral heavy (arn't we all with this build?).

I would love your feedback on this!

Thanks for the info regarding early spire. I will open with 1 scouting Phoenix from now on and weigh it up from there.

Here is a game I just played against a Roach/Hydra bust, compare your defense at the third to mine.

http://www.twitch.tv/bocciagaming/b/322237829

I made a few mistakes, losing the mothership in first engagement was pretty bad micro. Also, I let him block my Nexus which was bad and then I made a macro Nexus but didn't take guys off gas to compensate so I was mineral starved and floating gas during the earlygame. But regardless, it should give you a "rough idea" of the defense.

ineversmile

United States583 Posts

June 22 2012 15:03 GMT

#563

I think when you go macro nexus, you should get gas later and put the Nexus up higher to form more of the wall-off. I'm still fooling around with it, myself but I think you can give a little more distance to your expo minerals and be fine because the whole point is to keep producing workers, not so much the saturation.

@ 14 minutes you have a 4th going up behind a giant wall of cannons, but lings run by and harass the nexus from the back. I think you should consider parking a Void Ray over the Nexus if you're taking a distant fourth like that. I don't think it would ruin the army to have one less Void Ray at that stage, whereas that single Void would be able to deflect the hell out of the run-by or put more of a clock on Roaches if a bunch of those go up to your Nexus. I feel like this is about the same tactic as leaving 1-2 Sentries behind a wall-off or a HT in each base, just with a different unit.

I like how @19 minutes he was looking around with a giant ball of corruptors for an air army to fight near your main, but you were up a the top left sitting over your 4th. I wonder if it's correct to build about 6-8 stargates in that new main base area where the mothership should be camping out; that would mean you could sacrifice/trade away your main and keep production/tech in order where your mineral patches are, so you don't have to defend multiple crucial locations at once. Plus, the rally points would be a lot more convenient. I know you kinda did that this game, but maybe it's better to just invest in more stargates in the new main base preemptively rather than when the doom army comes to your doorstep. Food for thought.

I feel like this new ladder map is so sick for macro play, but there are so many good spots for a nydus wyrm...so annoying.

-MoOsE-

United States236 Posts

June 22 2012 15:17 GMT

#564

Do you like to go for some early pressure first ie zealots or go straight to stargate for the quicker mothership? I feel like with early pressure you force useless roaches and stop droning, but at the same time the z can go for a continuing roach bust on your third while you have low v ray numbers

ineversmile

United States583 Posts

June 22 2012 15:30 GMT

#565

The Macro Nexus build with a fast Mothership seems like it drones about as effeciently as triple hatch. I'm going to solitaire it a few games and check it out in more detail.

Rimak

Denmark434 Posts

June 22 2012 15:31 GMT

#566

Guyz, i have a quick question.
What are the risks of taking stupidly fast 3rd nexus?
Like 5 minutes or so

Fogetaboudit

United States232 Posts

June 22 2012 15:49 GMT

#567

sounds good if you have a "read" that your going into a macro game. I'd say it's pretty unclear or just losing if you get cheesed.

I'm gonna play around with it. Something like 3 fast Nexus, rally probes to main and Nat?, make Mothership out of Nat?, get 1 void ray ASAP to tickle and deny slow lings. Cannon up/saturate all bases/scout, gogogo.

I feel the biggest issue is they could re-actively pump a lot of slow lings and overpower just 1 VR/Zeal. Maybe you should go pylon/cannon/Nexus?

ineversmile

United States583 Posts

June 22 2012 16:12 GMT

#568

I just played some test games on Daybreak to figure out how good a Nexus is, for walling off. I started with the usual FFE 13ish Forge after a 9 scout and then a 16 rally to the low ground for a failed 17 nexus (which is usually where you get blocked and then decide to build the macro nexus in the first place, since this is all assumed going into this build). It turns out that, if you build your Forge next to the bottom of your ramp to start the wall-off and you build the Nexus next to the top wall, there's a corner that units can traverse.

I played another test game that shows how this happens by building the Nexus in a few locations and trying to walk a probe past it. I went to 17 probes and then just built and canceled buildings to show what walls and what doesn't. Here's that replay:
http://drop.sc/202390

I am going to play a couple more test runs on different maps to show different potential wall-offs involving a macro Nexus. Maybe after that I'll just play a couple solitaire games to check the probe count if we literally just boost probes constantly for 5 minutes off of the 2base 3 Nexi build. I think the target worker count is about 75.

Also, something I've been thinking about is that a Mothership itself actually builds pretty darn fast if you boost it all the way. It's a 160 second build time (just like Warp gate), but each time you chrono you turn 30 seconds into 20 seconds, so 150 seconds would turn into 100 seconds (30*5 into 20*5) plus the other 10 seconds...making it 110 seconds build time, or just under 2 minutes with vigilant boosting. According to Liquipedia, energy regenrates at 0.5625 per in-game second, so in 20 in-game seconds a Nexus regenerates 11.25 energy. Between 3 Nexi, that's 33.75 energy, so if you start with a boost and a half banked you don't need to bank any more for a Mothership. That's not a lot of energy needed to save for Mothership; the rest can go to probes or units or w/e the hell else you want. This makes the Triple Nexus Mothership build look a lot more possible, considering that you could build the Mothership at your safer Natural expo Nexus and use the Macro one for probes; if that one somehow dies in a late bust you still have a mothership timing to stall for with an emergency wall-off for a few seconds.

For reference, some build times:
Gateway: 65
Cyber Core: 50
Stargate: 60
Fleet Beacon: 60
Mothership (boosted 5 times): 110

From the start of your gateway to the mothership popping out, if you miss 0 build timings, that's 345 seconds or almost 6 minutes of in-game time.

smokingkipper

United Kingdom7 Posts

June 22 2012 16:14 GMT

#569

But what's the point in an extra early third? I mean, we are going to get there in the end so why rush things?

What specific advantage can be gained via taking the risk? I think you are more or less immune to early pressure as already demonstrated (and thanks for your stream link, I have been watching a few of your vods), things will be going to the very late game.

I guess what I am trying to say is that unless you are going to try and carve out a good timing which can benefit from rushing a third pre MS, just take it safe and easy.

Lol, but what do I know

ineversmile

United States583 Posts

June 22 2012 16:38 GMT

#570

Here is a replay of solitaire on Daybreak, showing potential wall-offs:

http://drop.sc/202409

(8x speed throug the first 3 and a half minutes or so; I just get an economy up so I can build and cancel stuff at will to display wall-offs).

The downside to me seems to be that roaches might outrange cannons with the right positioning, giving them free range to take potshots on the nexus. But that could probably be dealt with via a cannon on the high ground and one right in the armpit between the macro nexus and gateway. Also, a nexus can tank some serious damage, so maybe if 7-10 roaches roll up to bust your front door, boost out a void first and have that solve the problem. After that stage, you could always just build more cannons in front of the wall to stall a hydra bust...just make sure to scout it while it starts rolling across the map.

Also, you could theoretically use pylons to help form the wall-off, but I was just trying to see if the wall could be done without that. Pylons aren't the most sturdy of barricades.... Or instead of a partial wall-off, a full wall could be used while you tech mothership and probe up, which makes you really really safe from busts without even needing any early gateway units at all.

-MoOsE-

United States236 Posts

June 22 2012 17:34 GMT

#571

so what is the point of getting this macro nexus?

Fogetaboudit

United States232 Posts

June 22 2012 17:53 GMT

#572

On June 23 2012 02:34 -MoOsE- wrote:
so what is the point of getting this macro nexus?

the advantages are pretty obvious...

Extra Chrono
Extra Probe Production even during Mothership build time (very valuable when recovering against harass)
quicker access to more patches/geysers when blocked
Supply

So are the disadvantages...
-A tell that you are going into macro
-Big early investment, slowing tech

The question is "whether or not this is worth it," not .. "whats the point"

-MoOsE-

United States236 Posts

June 22 2012 18:45 GMT

#573

ok I just played another game and won and I think that if you can secure a 4th just throw down like 20 gates with all of your extra minerals and then after the big 200/200 fight warp in zealots everywhere while you are rebuilding. It seems a lot of times that your opponent will instantly remax on infestor/corrupter so lots counter this pretty well.

lorestarcraft

United States1049 Posts

June 22 2012 18:49 GMT

#574

On June 23 2012 00:03 ineversmile wrote:
I think when you go macro nexus, you should get gas later and put the Nexus up higher to form more of the wall-off. I'm still fooling around with it, myself but I think you can give a little more distance to your expo minerals and be fine because the whole point is to keep producing workers, not so much the saturation.

@ 14 minutes you have a 4th going up behind a giant wall of cannons, but lings run by and harass the nexus from the back. I think you should consider parking a Void Ray over the Nexus if you're taking a distant fourth like that. I don't think it would ruin the army to have one less Void Ray at that stage, whereas that single Void would be able to deflect the hell out of the run-by or put more of a clock on Roaches if a bunch of those go up to your Nexus. I feel like this is about the same tactic as leaving 1-2 Sentries behind a wall-off or a HT in each base, just with a different unit.

I like how @19 minutes he was looking around with a giant ball of corruptors for an air army to fight near your main, but you were up a the top left sitting over your 4th. I wonder if it's correct to build about 6-8 stargates in that new main base area where the mothership should be camping out; that would mean you could sacrifice/trade away your main and keep production/tech in order where your mineral patches are, so you don't have to defend multiple crucial locations at once. Plus, the rally points would be a lot more convenient. I know you kinda did that this game, but maybe it's better to just invest in more stargates in the new main base preemptively rather than when the doom army comes to your doorstep. Food for thought.

I feel like this new ladder map is so sick for macro play, but there are so many good spots for a nydus wyrm...so annoying.

The new map has way too much dead air space behind it. It is a pain to deal with mutas without going full-on phoenix.

smokingkipper

United Kingdom7 Posts

June 22 2012 18:50 GMT

#575

Arg, my wording was terrible I come across as being a bit of an arse, sorry about that, not my intention!

Fogetaboudit

United States232 Posts

June 22 2012 19:27 GMT

#576

not at all bro, happy gaming!

The Eskimo

United States21 Posts

June 22 2012 19:53 GMT

#577

Hi there! I was curious if anyone had a set build order they'd like to toss me , because I am currently a mid masters toss in the works of this.

ineversmile

United States583 Posts

June 22 2012 19:54 GMT

#578

I did a couple test games on Cloud Kingdom. So on that map, there are exactly 9 spaces between the top and bottom of your low ground choke point. Normally, that means Forge/Gateway/Zealot/Pylon, but with a Nexus you can go Nexus/Zealot/Forge using the same space. There's even a perfect hallways between 2 giant buildings for blocking off, although it is possible to screw up the block by putting the probe/zealot too close to the corner of the nexus (which is apparantly rounded off).

Long story short, Cloud Kingdom is a really good map for a macro nexus as part of a wall-off. You can put a cannon up behind your gas near the overlord spot, and another one on the high ground by the cliff looking down from your main to the choke point. That covers roach attacks with 2 cannons.

I think you want to go 13-14 forge and then a nexus at ~17-18, then build a gateway somewhere and another nexus after that. Maybe a pylon in there before the gateway; I'm not sure if that's how things time out. You do kind of want to bank up another 400 minerals after building a cannon and a gateway, so maybe probes should be cut at 18 or something.

And I think if you scout an early pool that's not a 6pool but something more like 10pool to deny/slow your own nexus, it might be smarter to build the macro nexus before the regular one, then block off that hallway with a probe. I have no idea how that times out, though. I forget which pool gets there at that point in time; I've been fooling around with gateway expos and mixing in 4gates/DTs lately in PvZ and my FFE is a bit rusty.

The Eskimo

United States21 Posts

June 22 2012 19:57 GMT

#579

On June 23 2012 04:54 ineversmile wrote:

Long story short, Cloud Kingdom is a really good map for a macro nexus as part of a wall-off. You can put a cannon up behind your gas near the overlord spot, and another one on the high ground by the cliff looking down from your main to the choke point. That covers roach attacks with 2 cannons.

Can you throw in some pictures of your wall off?

ineversmile

United States583 Posts

June 22 2012 21:34 GMT

#580

Here's a picture of the bottom-left base. Not sure if the top pylon and cannon should be that close to the wall-off or further away or what-not, but you get the idea. The clifftop cannon could be placed at different spots of the cliff, as well, or there could be multiple cannons, etc.

I restarted the game after that test run to see if I could build the base a little bit better. Here's one of the top-right base, with a mothership and everything.

Notice the zealot blocks the hallway on hold position.

Here's a shot of the southside of the main base, with some tech structures:

I think that the second pylon should go here, since space will be a factor with a macro nexus wall-off and you need to put the tech structures somewhere. This could be a spot for the gateway and cyber core. Alternatively:

This is a space covered by the first pylon with room for a gateway and/or more cannon(s). So you could 17-18 gate here before or after the nexus wall-off or cannon, depending on how the build order evolves and when the lings are expected to show up at the front door.

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