Recently i saw more and more Zergs blocking the Nat of the Protoss using a hatch.
I saw it in SPL, Vibe did it in MLG and Nerchio kind of made this to his standard.
Build is like:
rally 13th drone to scout (on 2 player maps) 14 pool, 16 try to get own nat, if it is pylon blocked => build hatch at protoss nat (only in case of Forge/nexus first expand). Queen, 4 lings get own nat ~4 (if later, consider taking 100 gas, because main is oversaturated anyways).
if protoss attacks the building hatch, cancel and replace with evo, else let it finish. The creep of a finished hatch will block the nat for ages ..
Advantages: * distorts P's build and timings massively, throws him off * each 12(chrono'd?)-15 seconds delay of P's expansion costs him a not-produced pobe. * you get your nat down before the Protoss even if he blocks your nat * P often attacks the hatch with probes (=lost mining time) * Hatch helps scouting
Disadvantage: * Delays your own eco ~45 ingame seconds. * susceptible to early allin
What do think, guys ?
a) Is its worth it ? b) should i let the hatch finish in case or cancel right before an put down evo OR cancel hatch immediately and replace by evo ?
no, toss can just send 4 probes attacking it (hatch hp will stay still) and get a cannon, i actually like when zergs do this to me cause i always end up ahead
On July 10 2012 04:01 RealRook wrote: no, toss can just send 4 probes attacking it (hatch hp will stay still) and get a cannon, i actually like when zergs do this to me cause i always end up ahead
But why do pros it with reasonable success then ?. 4 probes will not kill the building hatch, so it finishes and it takes >1 minute after the hatch kill until you can put down your nexus (creep). This means you have to oversaturate you main and got > 6 probes less because of the delayed nexus.
On July 10 2012 03:59 Toastie.NL wrote: cancel and turn into Evo, use the broodlings that spawn later to get scouting intel or kill something.
Hm, you get 225 back for the cancel and spend 75 for the evo, so overall the blocking cost 150+drone =200. If the hatch can finish it costs you 350 but creep delays the nat for ~1 more minute (for 150 minerals cost). However if the hatch is attacked and will die, doing the evo thing probably is the best solution. Nerchio seems to play this different depending on how fast he can kill the block pylon at his nat. In case its free he seems to do the evo replacement to get his nat down faster. I the protoss does a heavy block using an additional gate/pylon, it might be better to just let the hatch finish, but i dunno. Somebody doing this regulary ?
when I hatch block I: overpool -send drone after pool (early timing negates long rush distance/4p map, you can send it out later if 2p map) drone to 14 -my drone scouts them. on 4p maps, the overlord should be able to determine which base they are in, drone goes to them. drone confirms forge or nexus first. if forge first, IMMEDIATELY put hatch down. if nexus first, lings (nexus first can't really hold overpool). if gateway first, expand back home and play standard. -if the hatch gets up, queen -> creep tumor -if cannon/zealot gets up, cancel -> evo chamber lings (from overpool timing) will be able to run up the ramp, depending on when/where he put his cannon down, the lings may or may not be able to get the cannon. if you don't get the cannon, you can still run up into the main and force probes off the line.
in my experience, the advantage is toss being delayed around ~1 game time. you're only delayed ~30 seconds (hopefully droning/expanding behind this, gas for speed/roaches may be necessary if he all-ins). if you land the tumor, robo play is guaranteed to get the obs to expand, unless the tumor is in detection range of the cannon (just place it in back). with my particular overpool timing, since lings are guaranteed to run up into the main, we kill probes/delay mining, and see exactly what is going on. even if the hatch doesn't last, production facilities are delayed, and it is more likely to force another gateway unit if the probes didn't finish killing the lings. imo, it puts you ahead assuming you hit your injects and drone up back home.
a) definitely worth it, assuming you start the transition the moment the hatch is down and lings are out. it just may take practice to get a solid transition (obviously taking a third base is not likely, because toss will either all in immediately which you can't hold on 3 base no tech/gas, and you already invested 500+ minerals early for the block). b) i cancel my hatch if the cannon is in range or a zealot gets out that i can't kill with the 6 lings. on some maps, like antiga or entombed, depending on their wall and the cannon's positioning, it may not be in range. the hatch -> evo chamber is block enough, the queen is really a stretch. if you keep the lings alive, you can place them on the ramp just as the evo dies and use the broodlings/lings to focus something down. other thing is canceling the evo as it is about to finish and then go grab a gas in the main if it isn't already taken (forcing toss to put gases down at a natural that is delayed, and overlords by the main can peek in anyway)
overall good play to keep the toss honest. I'd recommend following it up with 2 base play -> third when safe (scout no all in), and 1 gas when the natural goes down. the gas is either for ling speed to continue with map control, or can be used for roaches if he all ins. hope this helps.
On July 10 2012 04:15 Andromedan wrote: when I hatch block I: overpool -send drone after pool (early timing negates long rush distance/4p map, you can send it out later if 2p map) drone to 14 -my drone scouts them. on 4p maps, the overlord should be able to determine which base they are in, drone goes to them. drone confirms forge or nexus first. if forge first, IMMEDIATELY put hatch down. if nexus first, lings (nexus first can't really hold overpool). if gateway first, expand back home and play standard. -if the hatch gets up, queen -> creep tumor -if cannon/zealot gets up, cancel -> evo chamber lings (from overpool timing) will be able to run up the ramp, depending on when/where he put his cannon down, the lings may or may not be able to get the cannon. if you don't get the cannon, you can still run up into the main and force probes off the line.
in my experience, the advantage is toss being delayed around ~1 game time. you're only delayed ~30 seconds (hopefully droning/expanding behind this, gas for speed/roaches may be necessary if he all-ins). if you land the tumor, robo play is guaranteed to get the obs to expand, unless the tumor is in detection range of the cannon (just place it in back). with my particular overpool timing, since lings are guaranteed to run up into the main, we kill probes/delay mining, and see exactly what is going on. even if the hatch doesn't last, production facilities are delayed, and it is more likely to force another gateway unit if the probes didn't finish killing the lings. imo, it puts you ahead assuming you hit your injects and drone up back home.
a) definitely worth it, assuming you start the transition the moment the hatch is down and lings are out. it just may take practice to get a solid transition (obviously taking a third base is not likely, because toss will either all in immediately which you can't hold on 3 base no tech/gas, and you already invested 500+ minerals early for the block). b) i cancel my hatch if the cannon is in range or a zealot gets out that i can't kill with the 6 lings. on some maps, like antiga or entombed, depending on their wall and the cannon's positioning, it may not be in range. the hatch -> evo chamber is block enough, the queen is really a stretch. if you keep the lings alive, you can place them on the ramp just as the evo dies and use the broodlings/lings to focus something down. other thing is canceling the evo as it is about to finish and then go grab a gas in the main if it isn't already taken (forcing toss to put gases down at a natural that is delayed, and overlords by the main can peek in anyway)
overall good play to keep the toss honest. I'd recommend following it up with 2 base play -> third when safe (scout no all in), and 1 gas when the natural goes down. the gas is either for ling speed to continue with map control, or can be used for roaches if he all ins. hope this helps.
Thanx man, sounds like a solid game plan . Seems like a good alternative to standard: surfing the edge of losing to a 2 base all-in with 3 hatch no gas all drones. I'll play around with that
I've actually run into this more and more in the past few days, and as a Protoss player, I simply don't understand the logic behind it. My cannon is in range, so that stops the Hatchery from finishing (if that is the Zerg's plan). The worst case scenario is I don't get my Nexus down, so I either just get 2 gases, or my Gateway/Cyber sooner, and then mass chronoboost probes when I get my Nexus out to catch up on economy. Plus, you can't rely on it, but sometimes the Zerg doesn't cancel and just loses 300 minerals...
Honestly, either way, this seems like a loss of mining/expanding/resources for the Zerg.
I keep a probe down in my nat to build, so as soon as I see a drone I follow it with that probe and send another if it looks like it's trying to plant something. Works nearly all of the time, and it's an easy fix to this really annoying strat.
I have had this happen to me a few times and from the replays it seems that any benefit that can be gained from it is entirely dependent on a ratio between how well Zerg executes and how well Protoss reacts. The first time it was a little rough but only because I was unfamiliar with it. The subsequent times I just got pylons and forge/cannon/Nexus in different order and it didn't seem to make much difference when both players executed properly. I noted slightly later timings for both sides but it didn't really affect the flow of play; it more stalled it.
My opinion is that it's a risky idea since against a FFE you should get a fast third and if you do this hatch block you don't have as significant a worker lead over Protoss as you would have because your nat and third are later and you spent minerals on cancel costs.
If protoss underreacts and lets the hatch finish, you win the game if you get a queen out, pop down a creep tumor and the toss can never expand in their natural. If protoss overreacts and makes 2 cannons, he will have 150 minerals more in static defense + delayed nexus. If he pulls probes u can sometimes just cancel the hatch and its essentially 75 minerals lost for you vs all the mining time he lost.
Also, you throw tosses off of any buildorder they were planning to do, which is huge as protosses really rely on their thought out refined 2base/3base builds.
On July 10 2012 03:59 Toastie.NL wrote: cancel and turn into Evo, use the broodlings that spawn later to get scouting intel or kill something.
Hm, you get 225 back for the cancel and spend 75 for the evo, so overall the blocking cost 150+drone =200. If the hatch can finish it costs you 350 but creep delays the nat for ~1 more minute (for 150 minerals cost). However if the hatch is attacked and will die, doing the evo thing probably is the best solution. Nerchio seems to play this different depending on how fast he can kill the block pylon at his nat. In case its free he seems to do the evo replacement to get his nat down faster. I the protoss does a heavy block using an additional gate/pylon, it might be better to just let the hatch finish, but i dunno. Somebody doing this regulary ?
It's not that simple. You also have to count the resources that you could have mined at your natural but didn't because you put the hatch down at their natural instead of your own. More importantly, you also have to factor in the larva you lose. This is absolutely huge, you now only have one hatch worth of larva instead of two. You can't possibly make anywhere near as many drones as you could have, which means that even when you get your expo up it will be mining far less. Protoss can continue to make probes, so when he gets his expansion up, he'll have a lot more workers for it.
I think if you're going to do this, you should always do the immediate cancel and put an evo chamber down. That way you only lose 125 minerals and your expansion is not delayed that much. If you just put the hatch down with the intent of canceling it at the last second or when it's about to be destroyed, you sink 300 minerals into it until you actually cancel. As a result, your expansion will be severely delayed. As Zerg, when you delay your expo this way, you lose mining time and larva production, while the Protoss only loses mining time.
I do this whenever I can, even if not pylon blocked. i place proxy hatch at 16, after pool, as has been mentioned. I virtually always let the hatch finish, I will elaborate below.
My favorite variation is to go to 6 lings to kill the pylon at natural, then just wait outside the toss natural for them to kill the hatch. If there's just one cannon and no zealot, you can use broodlings and zerglings to kill the cannon and force a probe pull by targeting the pylon to stop a zeal from popping. In which case you add a few lings and take out everything on the low ground, or run around the main, not sure which is best but either is great for you.
If there're two cannons, I use broodling cover to sneak my 6 lings--plus lings from the larvae of the proxy hatch, properly timed--into the main.
If they're probes attacking the hatch, I send in the lings and try to runby if possible while the broodlings attack the probes and soak cannon shots. Even if he blocks the ramp and the cannon covers the nexus, 4-6 lings sitting out of cannon range threatening a runby will force him to keep probes at the ramp or drop an extra pylon to block. He will probably chrono a zealot out, so I don't like to add lings and go for a cannon kill from both sides of the wall, but if the gateway is idle (overlord nearby can spot this), it's a possibility.
I like to use the proxy hatch in natural because it gives you a lot of quick threats against two key parts of FFE--the cannon and the nexus (through hatch block). I think FFE openings are not as safe as everyone currently feels, and that zergs should be making toss worry more about their openings.
I will hopefully remember to add a few replays when I get home.
This is actually a very interesting topic. I don't think anyone has explored this field enough. At least, I have not seen a deep analysis anywhere yet. If anyone is reeeeeally interested in, it would probably take 20-30 hours to do extensive research on this.
I don't think anyone can say if it is worth it or not with 100% confidence at this point. We just don't have enough data and calculation. We can only make educated guesses.
It is probably worth trying on maps like Entombed Valley, Antiga Shipyard if protoss walls at 2nd ramp, and perhaps Ohana too. On those maps, usual cannon placement does not reach the blocking hatchery, so at least protoss has to make a 2nd cannon just for the hatchery or sacrifice tons of probe mining time. If pylon placement is terrible at first, then protoss has to make a pylon before cannon as well, which delays killing hatchery furthermore. On maps like Shakuras Plateau, normal cannon placement covers the hatchery placement, so it is most likely not work and worth it.
On July 10 2012 03:59 Toastie.NL wrote: cancel and turn into Evo, use the broodlings that spawn later to get scouting intel or kill something.
Hm, you get 225 back for the cancel and spend 75 for the evo, so overall the blocking cost 150+drone =200. If the hatch can finish it costs you 350 but creep delays the nat for ~1 more minute (for 150 minerals cost). However if the hatch is attacked and will die, doing the evo thing probably is the best solution. Nerchio seems to play this different depending on how fast he can kill the block pylon at his nat. In case its free he seems to do the evo replacement to get his nat down faster. I the protoss does a heavy block using an additional gate/pylon, it might be better to just let the hatch finish, but i dunno. Somebody doing this regulary ?
It's not that simple. You also have to count the resources that you could have mined at your natural but didn't because you put the hatch down at their natural instead of your own. More importantly, you also have to factor in the larva you lose. This is absolutely huge, you now only have one hatch worth of larva instead of two. You can't possibly make anywhere near as many drones as you could have, which means that even when you get your expo up it will be mining far less. Protoss can continue to make probes, so when he gets his expansion up, he'll have a lot more workers for it.
I think if you're going to do this, you should always do the immediate cancel and put an evo chamber down. That way you only lose 125 minerals and your expansion is not delayed that much. If you just put the hatch down with the intent of canceling it at the last second or when it's about to be destroyed, you sink 300 minerals into it until you actually cancel. As a result, your expansion will be severely delayed. As Zerg, when you delay your expo this way, you lose mining time and larva production, while the Protoss only loses mining time.
agree partially, but protoss also loses probe production because of hatch block/late nexus. since P has no queen, he cannot compensate and massively loses probe production. if i play standard (protoss ffe, pylon block, i get my nat ~3'30..4'00) most of the time P gets nat down earlier than me (translates into eco/probe advantage for P). if i hatch block, i always get my nat earlier than P (so far), so it seems it is advantageous for me. If you are pylon blocked, you anyway need to wait for lings, and will get your nat late.
On July 10 2012 06:40 6xFPCs wrote: I do this whenever I can, even if not pylon blocked. i place proxy hatch at 16, after pool, as has been mentioned. I virtually always let the hatch finish, I will elaborate below.
My favorite variation is to go to 6 lings to kill the pylon at natural, then just wait outside the toss natural for them to kill the hatch. If there's just one cannon and no zealot, you can use broodlings and zerglings to kill the cannon and force a probe pull by targeting the pylon to stop a zeal from popping. In which case you add a few lings and take out everything on the low ground, or run around the main, not sure which is best but either is great for you.
If there're two cannons, I use broodling cover to sneak my 6 lings--plus lings from the larvae of the proxy hatch, properly timed--into the main.
If they're probes attacking the hatch, I send in the lings and try to runby if possible while the broodlings attack the probes and soak cannon shots. Even if he blocks the ramp and the cannon covers the nexus, 4-6 lings sitting out of cannon range threatening a runby will force him to keep probes at the ramp or drop an extra pylon to block. He will probably chrono a zealot out, so I don't like to add lings and go for a cannon kill from both sides of the wall, but if the gateway is idle (overlord nearby can spot this), it's a possibility.
I like to use the proxy hatch in natural because it gives you a lot of quick threats against two key parts of FFE--the cannon and the nexus (through hatch block). I think FFE openings are not as safe as everyone currently feels, and that zergs should be making toss worry more about their openings.
I will hopefully remember to add a few replays when I get home.
would be very interested in replays . i haven't spend that much in-detail attention to this topic until now. in current meta, pylon block+ffe gives P a slight advantage up to ~10 minutes, that's why 2 base all ins are that succesful. it would be huge to be able to break/threaten standard ffe play
Ok, so I want to preface these replays by saying that I'm not trying to suggest this become some new standard of play. What i'm suggesting is that it is a new all-in/timing to keep FFE-only toss on their toes in the early game, which until nerchio started doing crazy stuff was widely perceived to be wholly locked down and safe. At best, I think this is something to add to your arsenal, should he forge first and you can put down the hatch. At worst, I'm grasping at straws and blues are going to eat me alive for this (in which case, let's playtest before temp ban?).
Let me be clear: I believe that proxy hatch at protoss natural only works against forge first. Should be obvious, nexus first means no place to put your hatch, and nexus first is a different story (though I still think zerg can pull 6 drones to kill that first cannon should he nexus first).
Also, I dropped to diamond at the start of this season so these games are against diamond. I was once low masters (i.e. last season), for whatever that's worth to you. Testing partners welcome (PM me). I don't present these replays as anything but food for thought.
close spawns entombed valley. he forge firsts, I put down a 16 proxy hatch at his natural. he places one cannon, i make lings from 15ish drones. as he kills hatch, i have lings ready to run in, and i shred his cannon plus some probes. from there he is in emergency mode, chronos zealot and pulls some probes, puts down two more cannons; ling reinforcements, plus lings from larvae of proxy hatch, ensure i break it all down. gg, though he could wall at top of ramp or something?
This is the only game I could find that really demonstrates what I meant. The Valley's wide ramp makes this abuse very hard to stop without them scouting and overcompensating with a giant early wall. Yes, I build a lot of lings and it makes it pretty all-in, I didn't realize this until I rewatched. But I still think that since broodling+8 lings took down the cannon even with 3-4 probes fighting, there's room for abuse on the right maps. http://drop.sc/217866
antiga close spawns. i proxy hatch at the usual 16, stopping my drone at my natural to do it. this gives him a pylon block. doesn't matter, I pump lings and shred the pylon, then the same kind of wait-outside-natural-until broodlings deal. i kill two cannons, game goes longer and we suck at macro so random stuff happens. pylon wall on high ground is interesting, me pumping lings after i took out power to gateway was a really really really bad choice. don't make bad choices.
Antiga. Wish I had a good game to show on antiga because the forward wall normally forces the first cannon to be built too far away to hit the hatch. This is a terrible game, super terrible actually. The only reason I'm including it is because it shows that you can take down two early and finished cannons (!, meh, and ! on those adjectives, respectively) by pumping lings and abusing broodlings on hatch death. Yes, probe scouting would tip them off and they could pull probes and be ahead; this is proof of concept to show that toss has to be on their toes or you'll steal a win from nowhere, even against two cannons. http://drop.sc/217868
I proxy hatch, he drops (eventually a total of) two extra cannons, weird choice. i get the queen out regardless but screw up the tumor placement. i don't scout and die to unscouted one-base. reminder: this one is mostly to see how the macro plays out for master toss who doesn't die to my shenanigans.
Just adding this one because it shows the protoss response you may need to be aware of, and I think this guy is masters, so provides a better example of toss macro when faced with this (probably better, but I didn't really check, having spent nearly an hour fishing out these three replays). He drops an extra two cannons (questionable or smart? no idea) and gets a quick zealot to be safe, then one-bases me (5gate +1? can't recall). I screw up royally even though I get a queen out by putting the creep tumor too close to a cannon. I die because I'm too cheap to sac the overlord near the natural. Don't be a cheap zerg. http://drop.sc/217867
If I may sum up my opinions: I believe that there are weak points in FFE that we haven't bothered to check for (busy 3hatching and being greedy, etc.), that proxy hatch before natural opens these up for exploitation against forge first, and that a drone pull opens up a timing against nexus first. I think that the two types of FFE openings are eminently punishable, and I have been saying for months that it's time to start making protoss worry a little more about their FFE.
EDIT: added game summaries to make it easier, and so you can yell at me if the replays are wrong.
what about 3hatch before pool at 18food (2overlords). 1 of those hatches in his natural
he can cannon rush your natural or his natural, either way his nexus is ultra delayed and you could even have queens/zerglings at his natural if he cannon rushes your natural. heck even start mining his natural
This is actually really frustrating to deal as P. It does throw you out of your build, basically you have to choose either to stay behind and play your style or transition to some kind of one base play. For me it's 50/50, as i play sky toss and don't really care, as anyway i play turtle and if i get a hatch block, then just throw down a macro nexus after forge. Or just transition into 5 gate+1 allin, which actually work very well, as zerg usually now double expands behind hatch block and when 5 gate hits he don't really have any army.
Actully giving a thought what you need to do when hatch blocked is scout, if Z does double expand - allin. If he stays on 2 base, then a bit delayed expo against 2 base zerg is't much of a deal.
On July 10 2012 15:10 ajkayken wrote: i just thought of something dirty.
what about 3hatch before pool at 18food (2overlords). 1 of those hatches in his natural
he can cannon rush your natural or his natural, either way his nexus is ultra delayed and you could even have queens/zerglings at his natural if he cannon rushes your natural. heck even start mining his natural
seems so dirty
Just be aware that eventually you'll lose both hatches, and that means no larvae.
On July 10 2012 15:16 Heh_ wrote: As a protoss when I see hatch block, I just 4gate them. Played 2 games against hatch block, won both of them.
That is considering you go for some kind of gateway expand. If you go for forge first and cannon, expecting to throw down your nexus, your 4 gate will be delayed until about around 7.30, at which point the zerg has plenty of roach ling to defend that push. Or is there something im missing?
On July 10 2012 15:16 Heh_ wrote: As a protoss when I see hatch block, I just 4gate them. Played 2 games against hatch block, won both of them.
That is considering you go for some kind of gateway expand. If you go for forge first and cannon, expecting to throw down your nexus, your 4 gate will be delayed until about around 7.30, at which point the zerg has plenty of roach ling to defend that push. Or is there something im missing?
Your 4gate gets delayed by a minimal amount of time. If you went forge first and nexus gets blocked, just build a gateway and assimilator immediately, followed by a pylon. From there it's the standard 4 gate rush: zealot + 2 stalkers from the gateway, mass chrono on cyber. If the zerg player hasn't taken his natural yet, then don't do this.
If somehow you went nexus first and he hatch blocks, then throw down the gateway and forge together. You still need the forge for cannons.
I have been doing this for a while now, and personally, I always cancel the hatch unless I am sure it will live for at least 50 seconds after completion, allowing me to get a queen out (tumor in the Nat is basically gg) Generally, that means if even 1 cannon is made and nothing else, cancelling is the better option.
Generally, the hatch will die after 2-3 larva even off 1 cannon, and that is simply not enough to do anything with, and definitely not worth the 225 minerals it will cost you to let it finish.
Most of the time, I just use the hatch block to keep the game even, as what I'm really looking for is a nexus first, where I can proxy hatch the main for the win.
So... Assuming Protoss went for forge first, I go for a block on their nexus, then I go for my natural, then my 3rd, but if I am taking my 3rd before my nat, I am generally behind, either of the others is fine, with the hatch block being preferred.
On July 10 2012 04:01 RealRook wrote: no, toss can just send 4 probes attacking it (hatch hp will stay still) and get a cannon, i actually like when zergs do this to me cause i always end up ahead
Is pulling probes like this an optimal way to deal with a proxy hatch? I kind of feel like letting a hatch finish with full hp before my 1-2 cannons start working on it puts me a bit more behind than it does for the zerg player. This sounds like a better solution, but is the lost mining time worthwhile (hatch cancel or not)?
On July 10 2012 14:10 6xFPCs wrote: Ok, so I want to preface these replays by saying that I'm not trying to suggest this become some new standard of play. What i'm suggesting is that it is a new all-in/timing to keep FFE-only toss on their toes in the early game, which until nerchio started doing crazy stuff was widely perceived to be wholly locked down and safe. At best, I think this is something to add to your arsenal, should he forge first and you can put down the hatch. At worst, I'm grasping at straws and blues are going to eat me alive for this (in which case, let's playtest before temp ban?).
Let me be clear: I believe that proxy hatch at protoss natural only works against forge first. Should be obvious, nexus first means no place to put your hatch, and nexus first is a different story (though I still think zerg can pull 6 drones to kill that first cannon should he nexus first).
Also, I dropped to diamond at the start of this season so these games are against diamond. I was once low masters (i.e. last season), for whatever that's worth to you. Testing partners welcome (PM me). I don't present these replays as anything but food for thought.
close spawns entombed valley. he forge firsts, I put down a 16 proxy hatch at his natural. he places one cannon, i make lings from 15ish drones. as he kills hatch, i have lings ready to run in, and i shred his cannon plus some probes. from there he is in emergency mode, chronos zealot and pulls some probes, puts down two more cannons; ling reinforcements, plus lings from larvae of proxy hatch, ensure i break it all down. gg, though he could wall at top of ramp or something?
This is the only game I could find that really demonstrates what I meant. The Valley's wide ramp makes this abuse very hard to stop without them scouting and overcompensating with a giant early wall. Yes, I build a lot of lings and it makes it pretty all-in, I didn't realize this until I rewatched. But I still think that since broodling+8 lings took down the cannon even with 3-4 probes fighting, there's room for abuse on the right maps. http://drop.sc/217866
antiga close spawns. i proxy hatch at the usual 16, stopping my drone at my natural to do it. this gives him a pylon block. doesn't matter, I pump lings and shred the pylon, then the same kind of wait-outside-natural-until broodlings deal. i kill two cannons, game goes longer and we suck at macro so random stuff happens. pylon wall on high ground is interesting, me pumping lings after i took out power to gateway was a really really really bad choice. don't make bad choices.
Antiga. Wish I had a good game to show on antiga because the forward wall normally forces the first cannon to be built too far away to hit the hatch. This is a terrible game, super terrible actually. The only reason I'm including it is because it shows that you can take down two early and finished cannons (!, meh, and ! on those adjectives, respectively) by pumping lings and abusing broodlings on hatch death. Yes, probe scouting would tip them off and they could pull probes and be ahead; this is proof of concept to show that toss has to be on their toes or you'll steal a win from nowhere, even against two cannons. http://drop.sc/217868
I proxy hatch, he drops (eventually a total of) two extra cannons, weird choice. i get the queen out regardless but screw up the tumor placement. i don't scout and die to unscouted one-base. reminder: this one is mostly to see how the macro plays out for master toss who doesn't die to my shenanigans.
Just adding this one because it shows the protoss response you may need to be aware of, and I think this guy is masters, so provides a better example of toss macro when faced with this (probably better, but I didn't really check, having spent nearly an hour fishing out these three replays). He drops an extra two cannons (questionable or smart? no idea) and gets a quick zealot to be safe, then one-bases me (5gate +1? can't recall). I screw up royally even though I get a queen out by putting the creep tumor too close to a cannon. I die because I'm too cheap to sac the overlord near the natural. Don't be a cheap zerg. http://drop.sc/217867
If I may sum up my opinions: I believe that there are weak points in FFE that we haven't bothered to check for (busy 3hatching and being greedy, etc.), that proxy hatch before natural opens these up for exploitation against forge first, and that a drone pull opens up a timing against nexus first. I think that the two types of FFE openings are eminently punishable, and I have been saying for months that it's time to start making protoss worry a little more about their FFE.
EDIT: added game summaries to make it easier, and so you can yell at me if the replays are wrong.
Thanx for the input (nice troll play in game 2 btw ). The agressive ling follow up seems like a valid option, however if you would have played pure macro (2-4 lings only) it would have been very advantageous, too. In all of the 3 games you came out pretty ahead (assumed you build drones instead of lings). Your nat was already complete while the Protoss did not even start his. So it seems like its very advantageous macro wise, because you can outmacro him on 2 bases and take the third without taking the all-in risk of standard 3 hatch play. If the P decides to go for one base play/all in its GG except you mess up big time.
Wonder how this opening turns out if the Protoss reacts better. If there are no better options for P than those in these replays, FFE is a dead opening
On July 11 2012 00:08 Jermstuddog wrote: I have been doing this for a while now, and personally, I always cancel the hatch unless I am sure it will live for at least 50 seconds after completion, allowing me to get a queen out (tumor in the Nat is basically gg) Generally, that means if even 1 cannon is made and nothing else, cancelling is the better option.
Generally, the hatch will die after 2-3 larva even off 1 cannon, and that is simply not enough to do anything with, and definitely not worth the 225 minerals it will cost you to let it finish.
Most of the time, I just use the hatch block to keep the game even, as what I'm really looking for is a nexus first, where I can proxy hatch the main for the win.
So... Assuming Protoss went for forge first, I go for a block on their nexus, then I go for my natural, then my 3rd, but if I am taking my 3rd before my nat, I am generally behind, either of the others is fine, with the hatch block being preferred.
I am not that sure. If the hatch is killed after it finishes, it takes > 1 minute until creep is gone. That means >= 4 probes less for the protoss and 1 minute longer mining off the oversaturated main. I think the damage you do is more worth than you gain of 225 minerals when canceling. Also its guaranteed damage, as the protoss cannot take another base without huge risk.
Actually i think Protoss has to prevent the hatch from coming up at virtually any cost. Hatch completes == GG macrowise imo
On July 11 2012 00:08 Jermstuddog wrote: I have been doing this for a while now, and personally, I always cancel the hatch unless I am sure it will live for at least 50 seconds after completion, allowing me to get a queen out (tumor in the Nat is basically gg) Generally, that means if even 1 cannon is made and nothing else, cancelling is the better option.
Generally, the hatch will die after 2-3 larva even off 1 cannon, and that is simply not enough to do anything with, and definitely not worth the 225 minerals it will cost you to let it finish.
Most of the time, I just use the hatch block to keep the game even, as what I'm really looking for is a nexus first, where I can proxy hatch the main for the win.
So... Assuming Protoss went for forge first, I go for a block on their nexus, then I go for my natural, then my 3rd, but if I am taking my 3rd before my nat, I am generally behind, either of the others is fine, with the hatch block being preferred.
I am not that sure. If the hatch is killed after it finishes, it takes > 1 minute until creep is gone. That means >= 4 probes less for the protoss and 1 minute longer mining off the oversaturated main. I think the damage you do is more worth than you gain of 225 minerals when canceling. Also its guaranteed damage, as the protoss cannot take another base without huge risk.
Actually i think Protoss has to prevent the hatch from coming up at virtually any cost. Hatch completes == GG macrowise imo
Unfortunately, that only matters if Protoss bullheadedly focuses on killing the hatch and reclaiming his natural. He COULD and SHOULD just go immediately into a +1 4 gate, and that is going to be pretty fucking hard to hold off considering you've spent 350 on a hatch in his natural (he can even use a Zealot or two to clean up the hatch since he doesn't care about creep spread) and delayed your own natural and queen by at least a full minute.
Cute strats are cute, but you have to know how to keep from dying to equally cute bullshit. +1 4 gates are pretty cute, and pretty hard to stop when you're 350 minerals behind where you should be.
Being rather experienced with it from the Zerg side, I suggest my friends to block Zs Nat, then hide the scouting probe somewhere on the map. Put down a gateway, cannon, and take a gas in your main. @ gateway completion, cyber core to finish your wall and zealot rallied straight to the hatch.
If Zerg doesn't cancel, +1 4 gate FTW.
If Zerg cancels, you just proceed with a normal game, using a zealot w/ 2 stalker poke at the 3rd to force non-drones out of Z. It's ok if the Zealot dies, but do NOT lose your stalkers.
Follow up with your favorite 2 base attack, which should only be about 30 seconds behind standard timings, which is fine because Z should be behind by about as much.
On July 11 2012 00:08 Jermstuddog wrote: I have been doing this for a while now, and personally, I always cancel the hatch unless I am sure it will live for at least 50 seconds after completion, allowing me to get a queen out (tumor in the Nat is basically gg) Generally, that means if even 1 cannon is made and nothing else, cancelling is the better option.
Generally, the hatch will die after 2-3 larva even off 1 cannon, and that is simply not enough to do anything with, and definitely not worth the 225 minerals it will cost you to let it finish.
Most of the time, I just use the hatch block to keep the game even, as what I'm really looking for is a nexus first, where I can proxy hatch the main for the win.
So... Assuming Protoss went for forge first, I go for a block on their nexus, then I go for my natural, then my 3rd, but if I am taking my 3rd before my nat, I am generally behind, either of the others is fine, with the hatch block being preferred.
I am not that sure. If the hatch is killed after it finishes, it takes > 1 minute until creep is gone. That means >= 4 probes less for the protoss and 1 minute longer mining off the oversaturated main. I think the damage you do is more worth than you gain of 225 minerals when canceling. Also its guaranteed damage, as the protoss cannot take another base without huge risk.
Actually i think Protoss has to prevent the hatch from coming up at virtually any cost. Hatch completes == GG macrowise imo
Unfortunately, that only matters if Protoss bullheadedly focuses on killing the hatch and reclaiming his natural. He COULD and SHOULD just go immediately into a +1 4 gate, and that is going to be pretty fucking hard to hold off considering you've spent 350 on a hatch in his natural (he can even use a Zealot or two to clean up the hatch since he doesn't care about creep spread) and delayed your own natural and queen by at least a full minute.
Cute strats are cute, but you have to know how to keep from dying to equally cute bullshit. +1 4 gates are pretty cute, and pretty hard to stop when you're 350 minerals behind where you should be.
yeah, just discovered this the hard way on ladder this day .. Actually all inning 4 gateish is not the worst option for the P. It is holdable, but in order to hold that you need to build army/static defense, which lets your macro advantage shrink. However i still prefer 2 vs 1 base play over standard 3 vs 2 base. will fiddle around with this for some time ..
i tried this and the protoss just let it finish and he use his canon to kill >< and i planted my queen egg there , so by delaying , whos having advantage now? me or him? against a gm btw
If I'm doing a fast expand build and I get Nexus blocked, I build a macro nexus as part of the wall-off and put one cannon down, then when I deal with the hatch block (however long it takes) I put a third nexus up there and I have a giant probe lead over my opponent, with a darn safe wall-in. The point is that you don't stop probe production, so even if you're long-distance mining the natural for a little while, you're getting a ton of probes and you can chronoboost the hell out of anything. You really have to know how to wall-in with a Nexus, though; it has rounded corners and you can make some walls that look sound but are actually swiss cheese.
instead of a hatch block, I usually go with an 11 pool and rally 6 lings into their base. With this I can usually throw them off of their build pretty damn well, or if they are greedy I can just win the game right there. Plus it is very funny to watch them rage. if they play standard, then they will hold it and you can throw them off the build and get a couple of probe kills and scouting.
On July 11 2012 12:22 S2Glow wrote: i tried this and the protoss just let it finish and he use his canon to kill >< and i planted my queen egg there , so by delaying , whos having advantage now? me or him? against a gm btw
Do you mean tumor? If you get the tumor down, prepare for an all-in, because it'll delay him at least an extra cannon, if not until obs come out, so at that point there's no point in him expanding anymore and I think almost every toss will do something off one base.
If you mean you burnt/wasted a spawn larvae, you might be behind. It's really hard to tell, but I feel like I'm slightly ahead (say, a little less ahead than toss is after pylon blocking your natural) if I don't invest in a queen at the proxy hatch.
Since you say you played vs a GM, I'm curious: how did the game play out? Sounds like you proxy hatched on 16, and he slowly killed it with one cannon, allowing you to get a queen and tumor out, in which case I don't see how you could have lost, he's invested in a cannon and you just need to get roach-ling and some spines (less lings because it's likely he'll get +1, which you can see on the forge) to defend your natural against the 4-5gate, making sure he doesn't run up the ramp.
When you hatch block just keep the overlord over his base so you can see exactly what he plans to build. As getting more pylons/cannons would mean so heavily delayed 4-gate that it doesn't really matter. Likewise, getting a cybercore/gas would mean a furtherly delayed nexus, so you can do any of the oldschool two-base plays with an extra queen and a spine or two. - and get away with cancelling the Hatchery!
If protoss does place more backwards cannons/pylons, I will always try to let the hatchery finish and get out a queen. I've not only delayed his expansion at this point, I've also forced him to toss away upwards 250 minerals on maps like Antiga where a frontal wall won't reach the building hatchery. If the queen finish you can plop down a creep tumor and laugh as you've now entirely shut down the Protoss expansion for 500 minerals cost, while he's paid 150 for the forge and 300 for two cannons. It almost evens out and is definitively worth it if you're capable of keeping your macro up in the background.
On July 11 2012 15:29 Xana wrote: When you hatch block just keep the overlord over his base so you can see exactly what he plans to build. As getting more pylons/cannons would mean so heavily delayed 4-gate that it doesn't really matter. Likewise, getting a cybercore/gas would mean a furtherly delayed nexus, so you can do any of the oldschool two-base plays with an extra queen and a spine or two. - and get away with cancelling the Hatchery!
If protoss does place more backwards cannons/pylons, I will always try to let the hatchery finish and get out a queen. I've not only delayed his expansion at this point, I've also forced him to toss away upwards 250 minerals on maps like Antiga where a frontal wall won't reach the building hatchery. If the queen finish you can plop down a creep tumor and laugh as you've now entirely shut down the Protoss expansion for 500 minerals cost, while he's paid 150 for the forge and 300 for two cannons. It almost evens out and is definitively worth it if you're capable of keeping your macro up in the background.
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Sounds like the best option. Scout wether he prepares a one base push (4,5 gate) and if so, cancel hatch, else let it finish. good plan .
I'm just doing this against nexus first, and then if i see that he only puts down 1 canon i'll let the hatchery finish and build a queen to get a creep tumor and win.
Someone did this against mc in the gsl and lost completely onesided. Its decent if your opponent does not know how to react, but i guess every cheese is.
I tried to do this, and it worked great. I let the hatch finish and i managed to use the broodligns and some lings i had just outside his base (8 lings) to kill a cannon and a pylon powering all of the buildings in his wall. he had to wait until the creep faded away before making his nexus. At the same time, he tried to cannon rush my natural and failed miserably, so he placed a cannon + pylon in my third, which i noticed only after i tried to send a drone to expand. At this point i did the stupidest thing ever, i tried a nydus hydra ling attack, which failed miserably. What do you think can be a good 2 base trasition to press the issue and kill him? maybe mutaslisks? maybe a ling infestor attack with infested terrans lobbed over his wall? or just roach ling into third? I would love to hear your suggestions
If the protoss player builds 1 cannon and doesn't chrono out a zealot, you should be able to get a queen and drone out of your proxy hatch. Plant a creep tumour and spine crawler behind the natural's mineral line and his natural will be delayed forever. Then he is stuck expanding outside his base (extremely unsafe) or all-inning.
If somehow you manage to get a queen up, and put a creep tumor, that is not detected by the cannon at the wall, it's worth it. Otherwise, it's hard to determine..
On July 11 2012 22:17 BoggieMan wrote: Someone did this against mc in the gsl and lost completely onesided. Its decent if your opponent does not know how to react, but i guess every cheese is.
On July 11 2012 22:17 BoggieMan wrote: Someone did this against mc in the gsl and lost completely onesided. Its decent if your opponent does not know how to react, but i guess every cheese is.
its not cheese if you omit the ling follow up. its similar to pylon blocking the zergs nat and third. if you cancel the hatch, you just lost 75 mins, thats less than a pylon ..
A standard situation is: protoss blocks nat with a pylon, so you hava to wait for lings anyway, since you have already 300 mins saved up, why not block the protoss nat until the blocking pylon is removed ? This way you ensure that his nat is not earlier than yours (incase you do cancel-into-evo or let hatch finish, your nat will be earlier than the Protoss nat, which should be an advantage)
On July 11 2012 22:36 Asolmanx wrote: I tried to do this, and it worked great. I let the hatch finish and i managed to use the broodligns and some lings i had just outside his base (8 lings) to kill a cannon and a pylon powering all of the buildings in his wall. he had to wait until the creep faded away before making his nexus. At the same time, he tried to cannon rush my natural and failed miserably, so he placed a cannon + pylon in my third, which i noticed only after i tried to send a drone to expand. At this point i did the stupidest thing ever, i tried a nydus hydra ling attack, which failed miserably. What do you think can be a good 2 base trasition to press the issue and kill him? maybe mutaslisks? maybe a ling infestor attack with infested terrans lobbed over his wall? or just roach ling into third? I would love to hear your suggestions
One of the all-ins after this will be dts, so you'll want lair regardless. I strongly prefer roach-ling as a followup because it's likely he'll 4gate you (you can see from this thread how 4gate is the go-to response from most toss), and if he catches you with a low spine count while teching, you'll die. Roach-ling will also give you the option of pressuring him if he does retake his natural, and this can force cannons or sentries at a time when he wants to get his natural running and probe count up.
what would you guyz do if the protoss just transitions into gateway and +1 tech faster, he wont kill the block asap without overcosting him, but he can have faster tech time.
I have to say I really enjoy doing this to toss, makes me feel good from all those pylon blocks at my nat ^_^.
But seriously, I've been talking to my Zerg friends and to random people on my stream(http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/Finchy711 in case anyone wants to check it out =P) about this and I think this is a fantastic thing to do whenever you can. Personally I think the pro's greatly outweigh the cons to doing this. You're not really delaying yourself THAT much (if you're trying to do the gasless Stephano style) and you make the toss tech instead of chronoing out a super economy. The thing is you don't need the third out THAT fast if you don't have the drones to saturate it, and you have enough larva to pump drones constantly from 2hatch + queens. Usually what I do is throw down my 3rd whenever I cancel the hatch with that burst of minerals. If toss only makes 1 cannon and doesn't pull probes then I think its correct to cancel hatch > evo chamber and delay as much as possible, then scout his 1base play.
For me, the best part about doing this are actually the 1-base all-ins that come after. Once you learn how to defend all the all-ins they can throw at you its a free win and collect points. The only follow up toss can do that scares me is a zlot heavy 4gt with +1, but even this can be defended if you scout the forge and make roaches and spines accordingly. Any robo tech comes too late to be scary imo, and air/DT's are shut down by evo / queens. (Just for frame of reference I'm a relatively high masters Zerg 617 points currently -- if you want to talk more about this or other Zerg related things come check out my stream =P)
As a toss player I can say this is annoying especially if they let the hatch complete. I usually respond by teching harder, whether it's fast robo, fast blink, fast dts, etc... The Zerg delays himself quite a bit and I try to use my tech advantage to even out any advantage the Zerg player had gotten with his hatch block.
Just a note from ladder: building a queen in case the hatch finishes will let you lose against a 1 base all in pretty sure, your defense misses those 500 minerals badly :-). In case the hatch finished, his nat is already delayed a lot, so if you want to play it safe, better invest the 150 for a queen or drones or army at home. You can build the queen if the protoss does silly things like building 2 or 3 cannons at his nat or loses money trying to cannon rush you. If he just ignores your blocking hatch 99% of the time he prepares a 1 base all in, so DO NOT build that queen :-) .. and get detection
I still don't see how this can possibly be good unless the Protoss has absolutely no idea how to react. The lost larva is just humungously crippling for Zerg. To illustrate this, take the cannon rush against Zerg. Protoss can spend 550 minerals on 3 cannons and a pylon, and even if Zerg cancels the hatchery and immediately remakes it at the third they are still massively behind due to lost larva. This is despite the fact that they only lose 75 minerals while Protoss wastes 550 minerals. Blocking the Protoss natural with your hatchery is gifting them the exact same advantage, only voluntarily.
On July 13 2012 05:51 Xequecal wrote: I still don't see how this can possibly be good unless the Protoss has absolutely no idea how to react. The lost larva is just humungously crippling for Zerg. To illustrate this, take the cannon rush against Zerg. Protoss can spend 550 minerals on 3 cannons and a pylon, and even if Zerg cancels the hatchery and immediately remakes it at the third they are still massively behind due to lost larva. This is despite the fact that they only lose 75 minerals while Protoss wastes 550 minerals. Blocking the Protoss natural with your hatchery is gifting them the exact same advantage, only voluntarily.
I think the fact that the zerg cannot take his natural in the near future because of the cannons without making a LARGE early investment into units is what really hurts the zerg, not necessarily the larvae.
The hatch block at the natural can be very useful and gain a large advantage for the zerg if, AND ONLY IF, the protoss' initial cannon cannot both defend his wall and hit the hatch. (ie walled at ramp on antiga or ohana). Then it forces the toss to build 1-2 more cannons that are semi-useless and sometimes lose mining tim if he decides to pull probes to attack the building hatchery. For a follow up, it is essential to have an overlord be able to check if he takes the expansion once the creep clears, because then the zerg can take a 3rd and drone hard to cement the advantage.
It's very annoying when a Zerg does this and you let it happen, but I don't think it really works at the pro level for a few reasons. First of all, if you are good, you will know it's coming. This means you can just hold position a probe in your natural and send another probe to chase the Drone, then Nexus as soon as you have the money. If the Hatch actually does get started, the best thing to do as Protoss is to play exactly as you normally would, take Gases, and have 4 Probes attack the Hatch. This will keep its HP constant and cause it to die very quickly once it completes. The Creep isn't a big deal as long as the Queen doesn't come out. If you want to be safe, 1 additional Cannon is enough to deter any Ling shenanigans. It should never really happen that a Queen gets out unless the Protoss really screws up. In a standard case, the Zerg will be forced to cancel his Hatch or miss out on a lot of minerals, which sets him behind on tech + Larva, whereas the Protoss will have a similarly timed Warpgate. From here, Zerg will be restricted from Droning freely due to the threat of a pressure.
If the Protoss is smart, he won't all-in, but will simply play a pressure based (+1 4gate or Stargate) macro game (or quick third) to maximize the economic damage born from the Zerg's lack of Larva. Doing a pressure will force the Zerg to build something other than Drones and may deny the third base or delay it significantly. In this respect, it's not really worth the Zerg's effort because a delayed Zerg third is a huge deal compared to a slightly delayed Protoss natural, because the former delays tech whereas the latter doesn't, as Protoss's primary Warpgate tech can still be acquired on 1 base.
I think hatch but canceling it and putting an evo chamber is better then building a hatchery and allowing it to finish imo. It's nice if you do that but having a hatchery finish i'm not sure how worth it that is.
On July 13 2012 07:51 blade55555 wrote: I think hatch but canceling it and putting an evo chamber is better then building a hatchery and allowing it to finish imo. It's nice if you do that but having a hatchery finish i'm not sure how worth it that is.
Here's me playing as P against a hatch block (Im not good by the way so this is definitely doable) http://drop.sc/221043
As you can see it illustrates what blade says, which is simply "building a hatch, letting it finish, then making a queen is going a little too far." In PvZ I do +1 zeals to DT anyways, but the hatch block made it so Zerg couldn't do his early third because a hatch block doesn't throw off zealot timings but it does delay hatch for Zerg. Anyway, hope Ps can find this helpful. The real secret is to go for the creep tumor (just expect it to be spawned and hit it with zeal (or cannon if he makes a mistake). I think for my particular build the archon option and an early +1 beats any mass lings that can come from this so maybe I get lucky? Stargate was in case of muta but I decided to attack anyway.
although playing p i would myself ask the following question, if it is an advantage why do i allow the Z to hatch-block, just holding a probe at your nat-exp position hard-counters this strategy. (and the z is behind)
On July 13 2012 05:51 Xequecal wrote: I still don't see how this can possibly be good unless the Protoss has absolutely no idea how to react. The lost larva is just humungously crippling for Zerg. To illustrate this, take the cannon rush against Zerg. Protoss can spend 550 minerals on 3 cannons and a pylon, and even if Zerg cancels the hatchery and immediately remakes it at the third they are still massively behind due to lost larva. This is despite the fact that they only lose 75 minerals while Protoss wastes 550 minerals. Blocking the Protoss natural with your hatchery is gifting them the exact same advantage, only voluntarily.
Starcraft is a 2 player game, right ? You do more damage than you suffer, because delaying the Nexus for up to 3 minutes means he loses probe production and chrono energy same as you lose larvae. However a hatch blocks for a longer time than a pylon. And a 14 pool gets units to remove the block out faster than a FFE, so you will plant your nat before the protoss. If you don't hatch block, get your nat after removing the block, you plant your nat 30 to 60 seconds *after* the protoss (FFE nat is ~2'50..3'10).
If you can get your nat uncontested, do not place the blocking hatch. If he puts a blocking pylon (standard), you anyway will have a late nat (~3'30..4'00). If you put a blocking hatch, you can take your nat at 4'00 (after building queen, lings and ovie, wothout canceling the block) so in real games (where your nat is blocked) you are better off with hatch blocking.
On July 13 2012 07:51 blade55555 wrote: I think hatch but canceling it and putting an evo chamber is better then building a hatchery and allowing it to finish imo. It's nice if you do that but having a hatchery finish i'm not sure how worth it that is.
The Evo block costs you overall 200 minerals, the hatch block costs 350 (both incl drone). If the hatch gets finished, creep blocks for > 1 ingame minute for the cost of 150 minerals. If the hatch does not get through, better just cancel without evo follow up (because it will die fast then anyways). Doing immediate hatch cancel with evo follow up helps you getting your nat down quicker, but i think letting the hatch finish in case is more advantageous. Remember: Delaying the nexus for 1 minute is 4 probes less and 1,3 chronoboosts less.
Actually Zerg has an advantage regarding drone production: Queens. Protoss needs that nexus in order to speed up probe production, Zerg can compensate partially because of larvae inject.
Building a queen at the blocking hatch is overboard, as you will lose to an allin because you invested too much.
On July 13 2012 21:58 Gajarell wrote: Interesting,
although playing p i would myself ask the following question, if it is an advantage why do i allow the Z to hatch-block, just holding a probe at your nat-exp position hard-counters this strategy. (and the z is behind)
Meh i can plant the hatch slightly misplaced. Its same game as pylon blocking. Most of the time a protoss gets down the blocking pylon
On July 13 2012 07:51 blade55555 wrote: I think hatch but canceling it and putting an evo chamber is better then building a hatchery and allowing it to finish imo. It's nice if you do that but having a hatchery finish i'm not sure how worth it that is.
The Evo block costs you overall 200 minerals, the hatch block costs 350 (both incl drone). If the hatch gets finished, creep blocks for > 1 ingame minute for the cost of 150 minerals. If the hatch does not get through, better just cancel without evo follow up (because it will die fast then anyways). Doing immediate hatch cancel with evo follow up helps you getting your nat down quicker, but i think letting the hatch finish in case is more advantageous. Remember: Delaying the nexus for 1 minute is 4 probes less and 1,3 chronoboosts less.
Actually Zerg has an advantage regarding drone production: Queens. Protoss needs that nexus in order to speed up probe production, Zerg can compensate partially because of larvae inject.
Building a queen at the blocking hatch is overboard, as you will lose to an allin because you invested too much.
You have to realize though letting the hatchery finish you are not taking a third for awhile not if you are going to be droning and getting queens anyway. So this delays your third base quiet a bit, when going evo block it doesn't delay it anywhere near as much.
On July 13 2012 07:51 blade55555 wrote: I think hatch but canceling it and putting an evo chamber is better then building a hatchery and allowing it to finish imo. It's nice if you do that but having a hatchery finish i'm not sure how worth it that is.
The Evo block costs you overall 200 minerals, the hatch block costs 350 (both incl drone). If the hatch gets finished, creep blocks for > 1 ingame minute for the cost of 150 minerals. If the hatch does not get through, better just cancel without evo follow up (because it will die fast then anyways). Doing immediate hatch cancel with evo follow up helps you getting your nat down quicker, but i think letting the hatch finish in case is more advantageous. Remember: Delaying the nexus for 1 minute is 4 probes less and 1,3 chronoboosts less.
Actually Zerg has an advantage regarding drone production: Queens. Protoss needs that nexus in order to speed up probe production, Zerg can compensate partially because of larvae inject.
Building a queen at the blocking hatch is overboard, as you will lose to an allin because you invested too much.
You have to realize though letting the hatchery finish you are not taking a third for awhile not if you are going to be droning and getting queens anyway. So this delays your third base quiet a bit, when going evo block it doesn't delay it anywhere near as much.
You are right. But there is no need for a risky fast third against a one base protoss . What's nice with this opening is, that you force the Protoss to a) one base all in or b) play from behind with a late Nat. If Protoss chooses (b) you can get a save 3rd round 6-8 minutes and will be ahead without taking too much risk.
An uncontested FFE lets Protoss have 30 drones at 5'30, this is a Zerg-alike benchmark. That's why Zergs have to take a gasless fast third to get ahead, and the fast 3rd is the reason why 2 base all ins work that good for Protoss. However if P cannot probe up that quickly, the Zerg can build up a sufficient eco advantage on 2 bases delaying his third a bit.
(Ok this somewhat theorycrafting , maybe Protoss will come up with a good counter which will not let them get behind in probe count that much)
On July 13 2012 07:51 blade55555 wrote: I think hatch but canceling it and putting an evo chamber is better then building a hatchery and allowing it to finish imo. It's nice if you do that but having a hatchery finish i'm not sure how worth it that is.
The Evo block costs you overall 200 minerals, the hatch block costs 350 (both incl drone). If the hatch gets finished, creep blocks for > 1 ingame minute for the cost of 150 minerals. If the hatch does not get through, better just cancel without evo follow up (because it will die fast then anyways). Doing immediate hatch cancel with evo follow up helps you getting your nat down quicker, but i think letting the hatch finish in case is more advantageous. Remember: Delaying the nexus for 1 minute is 4 probes less and 1,3 chronoboosts less.
Actually Zerg has an advantage regarding drone production: Queens. Protoss needs that nexus in order to speed up probe production, Zerg can compensate partially because of larvae inject.
Building a queen at the blocking hatch is overboard, as you will lose to an allin because you invested too much.
You have to realize though letting the hatchery finish you are not taking a third for awhile not if you are going to be droning and getting queens anyway. So this delays your third base quiet a bit, when going evo block it doesn't delay it anywhere near as much.
You are right. But there is no need for a risky fast third against a one base protoss . What's nice with this opening is, that you force the Protoss to a) one base all in or b) play from behind with a late Nat. If Protoss chooses (b) you can get a save 3rd round 6-8 minutes and will be ahead without taking too much risk.
An uncontested FFE lets Protoss have 30 drones at 5'30, this is a Zerg-alike benchmark. That's why Zergs have to take a gasless fast third to get ahead, and the fast 3rd is the reason why 2 base all ins work that good for Protoss. However if P cannot probe up that quickly, the Zerg can build up a sufficient eco advantage on 2 bases delaying his third a bit.
(Ok this somewhat theorycrafting , maybe Protoss will come up with a good counter which will not let them get behind in probe count that much)
I would argue Zerg can't get a safe natural because P tech isn't delayed as much as econ is. I can still get robo and sentries off of 1 base while still scouting you and making immortals. If you try and take a third later than normal it will be a lot harder than if you didn't hatch/evo block and just took a normal early third, and your late third can be matched by me getting an earlier third as well.
I let it finish if it will live long enough to build a queen from it, I then drop a creep tumor outside of cannon range and giggle maniacally as i saturate my natural, tech to roaches and mass up queen/roach (preparing for the inevitable all-in) with a quick enough lair to not die from dts. If protoss doesn't all-in and instead waits to get obs then take their nat, you should have time to max out on 3/4 base before they can saturate it.
On July 13 2012 07:51 blade55555 wrote: I think hatch but canceling it and putting an evo chamber is better then building a hatchery and allowing it to finish imo. It's nice if you do that but having a hatchery finish i'm not sure how worth it that is.
Blade is totally correct, one, this saves you money and gives you an instant refund of the hatchery which will allow you plant your 2nd, and possible 3rd base at a faster rate, making all of your timings more executable. Not to mention, when the evolution chamber breaks it too has broodlings that can be effective in lower-leagues, One problem I see is that many players who have never cancelled there hatches into evo's might find it difficult to get first try, so practice on a custom game before attempting on ladder.
I find much of the time when I've tried doing this the probe is chasing the drone and won't be able to build a hatchery there. They'll oftentimes even pull another probe in preparation because they think you're just trying to block with a drone.
As I see someone's already said, if you go for a pool before the hatch block, you can send in lings to distract the cannons allowing for just barely enough time to get a queen up and build a creep tumor, but that's really risky (namely due to a good player making a zealot to kill the tumor before it could finish, and/or probes or zealot attacking the hatchery before queen finishes)
On July 20 2012 11:05 Dbla08 wrote: I let it finish if it will live long enough to build a queen from it, I then drop a creep tumor outside of cannon range and giggle maniacally
As I pointed out it has some significant problems, but it can work, yeah. The cannon needs to finish after the hatchery's 50% construction mark to have enough time to build a queen if 1 cannon is the only thing attacking it (if there's probes then it needs to be even later, if there's 2 cannons or many probes then you're probably screwed — the time the zealot pops out convolutes things)
On July 13 2012 07:51 blade55555 wrote: I think hatch but canceling it and putting an evo chamber is better then building a hatchery and allowing it to finish imo. It's nice if you do that but having a hatchery finish i'm not sure how worth it that is.
Blade is totally correct, one, this saves you money and gives you an instant refund of the hatchery which will allow you plant your 2nd, and possible 3rd base at a faster rate, making all of your timings more executable. Not to mention, when the evolution chamber breaks it too has broodlings that can be effective in lower-leagues, One problem I see is that many players who have never cancelled there hatches into evo's might find it difficult to get first try, so practice on a custom game before attempting on ladder.
While it's probably a good move, it's not particularly obvious, I'd say.
You're gaining 150 minerals early on for a net loss of 75/125 more minerals than what would just be lost in a cancelled hatchery.
On July 10 2012 05:58 HoMM wrote: If protoss underreacts and lets the hatch finish, you win the game if you get a queen out, pop down a creep tumor and the toss can never expand in their natural. If protoss overreacts and makes 2 cannons, he will have 150 minerals more in static defense + delayed nexus. If he pulls probes u can sometimes just cancel the hatch and its essentially 75 minerals lost for you vs all the mining time he lost.
Also, you throw tosses off of any buildorder they were planning to do, which is huge as protosses really rely on their thought out refined 2base/3base builds.
This is the most solid response given so far. I would write my own response but this just about covers it. If you get a queen out YOU WIN
Also do not take a 3rd base of your own if you do not see your opponents nexus being thrown down.
On July 10 2012 04:01 RealRook wrote: no, toss can just send 4 probes attacking it (hatch hp will stay still) and get a cannon, i actually like when zergs do this to me cause i always end up ahead
Incorrect response. Not gonna waste time doing math but it doesnt take that long to make 125 minerals of lost mining time with 4 probes
This happened to me a few times, and while I won all but one of those games, now I just bring a probe down at 18 supply and place it on patrol to block a potential hatch until I drop my nexus. Trivial solution, and minimal lost mining time (something like 25 minerals).
On July 20 2012 13:05 EpidemicSC wrote: This is the most solid response given so far. I would write my own response but this just about covers it. If you get a queen out YOU WIN
I don't understand why people are saying this. Say p was going pylon, forge, nexus, and hadn't started his regular ffe cannon when you dropped the hatch. If he starts a cannon within 12 seconds of you planting the hatch, it's impossible for you to get a queen out. If he attacks the hatch with one probe right away, he has 38 seconds to react and build that first cannon. If he drops two cannons, he can start them 60 seconds after you drop the hatch. Basically, unless he has no idea how to react, you'll never get a queen out. Of course, even if you did, because he didn't want to waste money on more cannons, he will have gotten a gateway and a zealot or two--probably enough to kill the hatch, and more than enough to kill the creep tumor before it finishes spawning. Even if he doesn't kill the hatch or creep tumor, you'd have to place it pretty carefully to stay out of the 11 detection range of his first cannon. If he misses the tumor, he is in trouble, but at that point he deserves to be...
Like Balgrog said, I feel like to achieve the same results an "economic early pool" (10 or 11) is better. Just send 6 lings and expand, macro behind it. You will delay his natural no matter what (he needs minerals to wall-in), kill bad players (about 50% of players in master don't know what to do - some reactions are hilarious), throw him off and auto win against a lot of early cheeses.
I think hatch but canceling it and putting an evo chamber is better then building a hatchery and allowing it to finish imo. It's nice if you do that but having a hatchery finish i'm not sure how worth it that is.
what about just cancelling the hatch at the last second? I normally do that and i think the extra 75 minerals is worth it because you can just constantly build queens until you cancel the hatch and instantly build a third with the 225 back. also protoss can get away with just 1 cannon if you do an evo block, but they need 2 for hatchery, lest they open the opportunity for queens, zerglings, and creep tumors in their base
I think it's an interesting move, saw it done to my friend who is mid master toss, and it was quite noticeable how much it messed with the toss. He didn't overreact at all and took it down when it was finished (far before a queen could come out) but the creep stays for so long so the zerg had no issue expanding before him even though he blocked. The zerg ended up winning the game with a superior economy.
It's obviously gamewinning if you can get a queen out, but that shouldn't be possible, 1 cannon and 1 zealot should be enough to kill the hatch before queen can pop. As for immediate cancel into evo, meh. It's obviously good if you're going for agression and you can time the broodlings together with lings at the front to break it, but I personally think the creep from the finished hatch delays the toss nat WAY longer and 300 minerals isn't such a huge deal when you can delay the toss for so long. Of course, your nat is delayed as well, but it isn't delayed even close to as much as the toss nat AND nowadays, toss can often put down their nexus before the zerg puts down hatch anyway (watch the latest games on artosis youtube with yonghwa, his nexus is always about 50% finished before min can put down his hatch.
On July 14 2012 04:11 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: Meh i can plant the hatch slightly misplaced. Its same game as pylon blocking. Most of the time a protoss gets down the blocking pylon
Nope. A pylon is small and not restricted in its build location by resources. It's easy to patrol a probe in such a position that the zerg player cannot place a hatch preventing your nexus. You just make a small patrol at the corner of your potential nexus that is furthest from the resources. If you need some help seeing where that is, you can just turn on the building grid and measure the distance by pretending to make a pylon until you get used to it.
EDIT: alternatively, you can just take your patrolling probe and a-move it towards the drone when it enters your base. Unlike probes, drones have to get to the center of the building they would like to make before creating it. Hence, you won't ever be able to place a hatch unless you are further from my probe than the radius of a hatchery (in fact, even further, since the drone has to decelerate). Further, since probes don't need to decelerate OR get to the middle of the building they'd like to create, even if you run around trying to block my nexus, it is far harder for you to do than for me.
On July 20 2012 16:21 nick00bot wrote: also protoss can get away with just 1 cannon if you do an evo block, but they need 2 for hatchery, lest they open the opportunity for queens, zerglings, and creep tumors in their base
You don't need two cannons to kill a hatch before it spawns. If the toss starts a single cannon within the first 15 seconds of you starting the hatch and then starts attacking the hatch with the probe, the hatch will die before it spawns, at a cost in lost mining time of approximately 60 minerals. Even if you skip the probe and let the hatch finish, if you focus fire it with the cannon, it will die before spawning a second larva, and you'll have made gates and units while it was building, anyway (100s for hatch, 93s for gate+chrono'd zealot).
On July 20 2012 16:36 Tobberoth wrote: I think it's an interesting move, saw it done to my friend who is mid master toss, and it was quite noticeable how much it messed with the toss. He didn't overreact at all and took it down when it was finished (far before a queen could come out) but the creep stays for so long so the zerg had no issue expanding before him even though he blocked. The zerg ended up winning the game with a superior economy.
It's obviously gamewinning if you can get a queen out, but that shouldn't be possible, 1 cannon and 1 zealot should be enough to kill the hatch before queen can pop. As for immediate cancel into evo, meh. It's obviously good if you're going for agression and you can time the broodlings together with lings at the front to break it, but I personally think the creep from the finished hatch delays the toss nat WAY longer and 300 minerals isn't such a huge deal when you can delay the toss for so long. Of course, your nat is delayed as well, but it isn't delayed even close to as much as the toss nat AND nowadays, toss can often put down their nexus before the zerg puts down hatch anyway (watch the latest games on artosis youtube with yonghwa, his nexus is always about 50% finished before min can put down his hatch.
Exactly. A correct evaluation has to compare own delay against delay of opponent. A hatch cancel only makes sense if you detect an all-in, else it is worse if you put the damage done into the equation. The main problem i face now is that P blocks his nat with a probe. This was not the case a month ago, which is an indication a lot of Zergs do this on ladder.
You don't need two cannons to kill a hatch before it spawns. If the toss starts a single cannon within the first 15 seconds of you starting the hatch and then starts attacking the hatch with the probe, the hatch will die before it spawns, at a cost in lost mining time of approximately 60 minerals. Even if you skip the probe and let the hatch finish, if you focus fire it with the cannon, it will die before spawning a second larva, and you'll have made gates and units while it was building, anyway (100s for hatch, 93s for gate+chrono'd zealot).
yeah now that I think about it that only works when they try go nexus first, so i guess i should of specified that. you DO have to actually proxy hatch first to get that one to work though so it is pretty risky
People were talking in the skytoss thread about playing with a macro nexus, and I wonder if it might be a reasonable response in this case. You could keep up on probe production easily, and you wouldn't have to make a third pylon, reducing the effective cost of the nexus to 300 minerals. It wouldn't be as critical an issue to get rid of the hatch as quickly as possible, since your probe count won't be delayed, and you can distance mine from your macro nexus to get part of the revenue you would otherwise, and eventually you can build your natural to regain full revenue, and be ahead of the game in probing up for your third. Meanwhile, you are safer versus baneling busts, since a nexus takes a ridiculous 26 banelings to bust (thanks for the 1300/600 resources bro), and covers so much space (5 hexes versus the 3 of a gateway) that you need fewer forcefields to cover the remaining space. It also seems safer versus speedling busts and roach busts.
Perhaps most importantly, it's pretty easy to saturate gas even with distance mining. You could prepare some pretty dangerous DT pressure, archons, fast colossi, huge immortal sentry allin, skytoss, etc.
Just theorycrafting, but if you kill the hatch before it finishes, assuming it was placed by 3:00, you should be able to place your third at about have your third (natural) nexus finished by about 7:00 (giving about a minute for creep to recede), and have 70 probes before 10 minutes, with ZERO chronoboost (so you can spend it all on upgrades or chronoing tech units), or by 9:00 with a reasonable amount of chrono.
On July 20 2012 18:21 trbot wrote: People were talking in the skytoss thread about playing with a macro nexus, and I wonder if it might be a reasonable response in this case. You could keep up on probe production easily, and you wouldn't have to make a third pylon, reducing the effective cost of the nexus to 300 minerals. It wouldn't be as critical an issue to get rid of the hatch as quickly as possible, since your probe count won't be delayed, and you can distance mine from your macro nexus to get part of the revenue you would otherwise, and eventually you can build your natural to regain full revenue, and be ahead of the game in probing up for your third. Meanwhile, you are safer versus baneling busts, since a nexus takes a ridiculous 26 banelings to bust (thanks for the 1300/600 resources bro), and covers so much space (5 hexes versus the 3 of a gateway) that you need fewer forcefields to cover the remaining space. It also seems safer versus speedling busts and roach busts.
Perhaps most importantly, it's pretty easy to saturate gas even with distance mining. You could prepare some pretty dangerous DT pressure, archons, fast colossi, huge immortal sentry allin, skytoss, etc.
Just theorycrafting, but if you kill the hatch before it finishes, assuming it was placed by 3:00, you should be able to place your third at about have your third (natural) nexus finished by about 7:00 (giving about a minute for creep to recede), and have 70 probes before 10 minutes, with ZERO chronoboost (so you can spend it all on upgrades or chronoing tech units), or by 9:00 with a reasonable amount of chrono.
Yep. If you build a macro nexus when you get hatch blocked, you can get the same kind of probe production and then just build a delayed natural Nexus with some long-distance mining for a minute. This means matching drone production and having tons and tons of chronoboost. Having all that chrono lets you do some pretty crazy things, like a 110 second Mothership build time or do 7-8 gate attacks where you boost all the gates at once and have 2 warp-ins back-to-back from the chrono.
Though he loses the game (scout fail), i think he had a big advantage early on. I think Minigun responded well and applied pressure in order to force units instead of drones. Also note idra build some lings at the proxy hatch in order to scout.
I am not convinced that the fast 3rd of idra was a good decision though. At 6'24 its 26 (Z) drones agains 23 probes. Zerg is nearly on 3 bases, P has not even started the nat(!). Anyway Idra has not the drone count to make use of 3 bases. I think he would be better off when building the 3rd say 45sec to 1 minute later to get a drone lead (2cnd queen before 3rd). ofc i am very amateur, so well ..
Like I said in my post: It's not game-winning if you get a queen out
You need to successfully plant a tumor [in a spot where cannon wont' detect it]. A reasonable level protoss can generally build a zealot in time to kill the tumor a queen will plant. Zerglings help defend, but usually by that point they'll have 2 zealots, and with some probes they should be able to win the fight.
The situation is not straightforward for either side, and there are so many factors to deal with. Overall I'd say it's certainly more risky and/or not as worth it for zerg though, particularly at the highest level, as long as the opponent knows about this tactics (back when it was a surprise strategy some non-overreacting players could fall for it)
On July 20 2012 21:10 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: I am not convinced that the fast 3rd of idra was a good decision though. At 6'24 its 26 (Z) drones agains 23 probes. Zerg is nearly on 3 bases, P has not even started the nat(!). Anyway Idra has not the drone count to make use of 3 bases. I think he would be better off when building the 3rd say 45sec to 1 minute later to get a drone lead (2cnd queen before 3rd). ofc i am very amateur, so well ..
ive had pretty high sucsess agianst this by just going 4 gate without trying to expand against this. Especially if zerg makes a queen he will have invested a LOT into hatchery & queen & his own hatchery.
Roaches are limited because of the mineral intense early game, if he gets gas, he will delay his natural by a bit more, have less minerals
Zerglings, are also limited because of the 850 mineral investment for natural, hatch and queen (since he usually needs another queen at natural.)
On July 23 2012 00:07 weikor wrote: ive had pretty high sucsess agianst this by just going 4 gate without trying to expand against this. Especially if zerg makes a queen he will have invested a LOT into hatchery & queen & his own hatchery.
Roaches are limited because of the mineral intense early game, if he gets gas, he will delay his natural by a bit more, have less minerals
Zerglings, are also limited because of the 850 mineral investment for natural, hatch and queen (since he usually needs another queen at natural.)
well, if the zerg expects it, he easily can defend (as long he did not build a queen at blocking hatch). From my experience ~60% of the time i can expect a 4 gate. Like that
I feel that whenever the protoss reacts properly it puts him ahead as the delay zerg takes (drone scouting time lost, minerals for hatch or evo) is worse then the delay protoss takes. Most setups protoss can easily respond by going the cannon a bit quicker and just clearing the evo or hatch with that while teching quicker in the meantime as well. The quicker tech lets toss pressure faster afterwards and zerg will have a slower eco as well. This is mostly because I feel drone scouting is a waste of money though, there are no cheeses toss can surprise zerg with and the early lings you need anyway can scout what toss is doing just fine. A drone scout never really finds information that is critical which a ling scout later on wouldn't in my opinion making such a drone scout a pitiful waste of money. If you feel however you do need a drone scout then the entire thing becomes a lot better to do and is generally a good move if you get pylon blocked. It's also quite good in situations where protoss chooses to wall quite far away from the wall and thus they can't cannon the hatch/evo effectively.
Going for the queen is not really a good move imo, it can delay immensely if the protoss screws up but that's depending on poor play from the opponent. Protoss can simply use 4-5 probes in a half circle around the spot where the queen will spawn (bottom left of the hatch) along with zealot/cannon backup to instantly surround the queen and kill it before it can do anything.
Overall any proxy hatch shenanigans (in base hatches, hatch blocks etc) are not really effective if protoss responds well as they hurt zerg more than P. Throwing them in occasionally in pro play can still be good though to not be predictable and surprise players not familiar with it. I suspect a lot of the Kespa players are not really familiar with all the strange tactics yet so they will be trying them out and facing more before they catch up with the rest of the pro scene.
I think if you Pylon block the Zerg's natural and third bases, then it kind of ends up evening out. As Protoss all you have to do is place your other buildings first, and essentially do a Gateway expand with a Forge. I've had this done to me, and more often than not, it ends up putting the Zerg at a disadvantage.
On July 23 2012 02:25 Animostas wrote: I think if you Pylon block the Zerg's natural and third bases, then it kind of ends up evening out. As Protoss all you have to do is place your other buildings first, and essentially do a Gateway expand with a Forge. I've had this done to me, and more often than not, it ends up putting the Zerg at a disadvantage.
oh that reminds me, one of the times I tried this I got 3-pylon walled and cannon rushed/contained. I couldn't manage the drone drill thing since I haven't really practiced it and I think I was doing it wrong. Pretty sure I ended up losing.
On July 23 2012 01:34 Markwerf wrote: Overall any proxy hatch shenanigans (in base hatches, hatch blocks etc) are not really effective if protoss responds well as they hurt zerg more than P. Throwing them in occasionally in pro play can still be good though to not be predictable and surprise players not familiar with it. I suspect a lot of the Kespa players are not really familiar with all the strange tactics yet so they will be trying them out and facing more before they catch up with the rest of the pro scene.
lol, I'm sure they practice on ladder, the cheesiest place on Earth...
Overall any proxy hatch shenanigans (in base hatches, hatch blocks etc) are not really effective if protoss responds well as they hurt zerg more than P. Throwing them in occasionally in pro play can still be good though to not be predictable and surprise players not familiar with it. I suspect a lot of the Kespa players are not really familiar with all the strange tactics yet so they will be trying them out and facing more before they catch up with the rest of the pro scene.
There is a world of difference between proxy hatch in the toss main and hatch blocking the natural. The former does nothing to slow FFE econ and means that you're investing in a way to bypass the cannons and wall at the front. Hatch blocking the natural means you're spending money to slow econ, when their build revolves around that fast nexus. Basically, you're doing a super pylon block of their natural.
You keep saying things but you also said you never drone scout, so is it correct to say that you've never tried this? Are you masters or higher weighing in or something? Because you're talking with zero personal experience and zero pro player observations, and I'm inclined to ignore everything you've said, given the inaccuracy of the statement I quoted.
I have not had the chance to use this against a masters toss yet this season. Diamond toss seem to roll over to it, either overproducing cannons (in which case I cancel the hatch, even if it let's them cancel the second cannon) or losing their single cannon off the broodling stuff I talked about before and thus having to do emergency stuff like chrono zealots, pylon wall the ramp, pull probes, etc. Most maps allow for easy scouting to see whether they drop the nexus immediately after creep recedes. If they don't, get 3-4 spines, grab gas, and check the forge. Gas goes to roaches if you see forge moving (+1 zealots), lair if you fear tech to dts or stargate (add gases as needed, of course). Those spines go a long way (remember to rebuild drones), especially since toss seems to have a gas surplus at that point and will often go sentry-heavy on the 4-5gate option. Spines ensure he can't do any forcefield or hug-the-wall shenanigans. I have also found that one tumor helps immensely in repeling the attack because you won't have roach or ling speed in time, so the speed boost can be the difference between stalkers escaping to the pylon and a full surround.
On July 23 2012 00:07 weikor wrote: ive had pretty high sucsess agianst this by just going 4 gate without trying to expand against this. Especially if zerg makes a queen he will have invested a LOT into hatchery & queen & his own hatchery.
Roaches are limited because of the mineral intense early game, if he gets gas, he will delay his natural by a bit more, have less minerals
Zerglings, are also limited because of the 850 mineral investment for natural, hatch and queen (since he usually needs another queen at natural.)
This only works if the zerg takes a blind 3rd hatch. Zerg can keep an overlord over your expo and see that you never take your natural. If you don't take your natural, there's no reason for the zerg to take a 3rd, and so zerg stays on 2-base, gets 1-2 spine crawlers and earlier tech. 2-base zerg can easily handle a delayed 4-gate unless there's some kind of huge micro error. OR, if you somehow manage to deny the 3rd as well as the natural until 4-gate.
All in all, I honestly think it's far easier for protoss to recover than for zerg. Zerg literally has no immediate advantages of hatch-blocking other than "gee, now my opponent can't expand quickly", while protoss, on the other hand, has a faster tech, has the ability to make cannons, and the ability to pretty much endlessly stop you from expanding a lot (at the expense of the protoss expansion). That being said, I'm totally fine with pylon blocking the natural, cannoning the 3rd, and then 4-gating as a response that zerg literally CANNOT stop.
But I prefer to play macro, so I just kill the hatch, block a little longer, and go on with life.
Just wanted to add some more numbers into this thread. This is directed towards killing the hatchery before it completes so that creep from the hatchery doesn't land just using forge tech, no chronoing zealots or going for a +1 4 gate.
Using Liquipedia numbers, a photon cannon does 16 dps, a hatchery builds at 13.5 health per second (just divide max health - starting health by build time), and probes do 3.3 dps to make up free time the hatchery had to build while the cannon completed. Note that buildings start building with 10% of their hitpoints, so that would be 150 for a hatchery.
Forge first FFE openings
To kill a hatchery with just 1 cannon, the cannon must complete before the hatchery reaches ~200 hp. The theory crafting says 250 hp is the golden number, but factoring in the lag it takes for a cannon to complete and start firing as well as the travel time of the cannon shots means you should send out at least 1 probe for numbers higher than 200 hp.
With plenty of testing, it seems the best option is to kill the hatchery before it spawns with 1 cannon and 3-4 probes. The cannon is necessary for an FFE anyways, and the 3-4 probes will cost you about 150 minerals worth of resources. The hatchery canceling + drone costs the zerg 125 resources as well as the delay of giving up 300 minerals that will generally delay their natural, third, pool, or at least drones, at an earlier point in the game when they are more valuable.
To convince you further, if 1 cannon starts firing on a hatchery as soon as it starts building, the cannon will take 70 ingame seconds to kill the hatchery. With the addition of 1 probe (such as the one that would have planted the nexus), the time is cut to ~30 seconds. With 2 probes, ~22 seconds, 3 ~15 seconds, 4 ~10 seconds, which will barely delay your nexus and tech. I also believe SaSe uses this to stop hatchery blocks.
Nexus first FFE openings
If you were doing a nexus first opening and got blocked, one option is to build the forge asap and get 2 cannons... you won't be able to keep the hatch from finishing, since it will take 85 seconds for your cannons to finish (giving them 15 seconds to damage the hatchery before it finishes), but the cannons will be able to kill the hatchery before a queen finishes 50 seconds after the hatchery completes (if the zerg builds immediately), or before zerglings can hatch and survive the cannon fire.
A better option, I think, is to build a forge and gateway quickly, then 1 gas, 1 cannon, and chrono out 2 zealots. You'll probably kill the hatchery before the queen pops, but if you don't, you can still kill the creep tumor before it can burrow. Zerglings can be a problem with this path, since only 1 cannon usually can't kill all the zerglings before they get away and block the nexus further or run up the ramp, but you can position your zealot(s) to kill the zerglings as soon as they pop and force them into the cannon. You can now pressure/scout with the 2 zealots, take your natural, get a cyber core and 2nd gas, and proceed as normal (usually with some kind of +1 gateway pressure).
On July 20 2012 17:31 trbot wrote: You don't need two cannons to kill a hatch before it spawns. If the toss starts a single cannon within the first 15 seconds of you starting the hatch and then starts attacking the hatch with the probe, the hatch will die before it spawns, at a cost in lost mining time of approximately 60 minerals. Even if you skip the probe and let the hatch finish, if you focus fire it with the cannon, it will die before spawning a second larva, and you'll have made gates and units while it was building, anyway (100s for hatch, 93s for gate+chrono'd zealot).
This post is helpful, I just wanted to correct that the cannon must be COMPLETED with the probe attacking by the first 15 seconds of the hatch starting, so in this case you must already have the cannon started 25 seconds before the hatch started. This is obviously unfeasible, so I still think the more viable option is to build 1 cannon within about 10 seconds of the hatch starting and pulling 3-4 probes, which will kill the hatch before it completes and keep your tech from being delayed very far. If you start the cannon within about 4 seconds of the hatch starting and have two probes attacking the hatchery, you can kill it just about when the hatch finishes, before it can spawn creep, but it's obviously safer to pull the 3 or 4 depending on how late you are.
On August 14 2012 17:37 Doomball wrote: Just wanted to add some more numbers into this thread. This is directed towards killing the hatchery before it completes so that creep from the hatchery doesn't land just using forge tech, no chronoing zealots or going for a +1 4 gate. + Show Spoiler +
Using Liquipedia numbers, a photon cannon does 16 dps, a hatchery builds at 13.5 health per second (just divide max health - starting health by build time), and probes do 3.3 dps to make up free time the hatchery had to build while the cannon completed. Note that buildings start building with 10% of their hitpoints, so that would be 150 for a hatchery.
Forge first FFE openings
To kill a hatchery with just 1 cannon, the cannon must complete before the hatchery reaches ~200 hp. The theory crafting says 250 hp is the golden number, but factoring in the lag it takes for a cannon to complete and start firing as well as the travel time of the cannon shots means you should send out at least 1 probe for numbers higher than 200 hp.
With plenty of testing, it seems the best option is to kill the hatchery before it spawns with 1 cannon and 3-4 probes. The cannon is necessary for an FFE anyways, and the 3-4 probes will cost you about 150 minerals worth of resources. The hatchery canceling + drone costs the zerg 125 resources as well as the delay of giving up 300 minerals that will generally delay their natural, third, pool, or at least drones, at an earlier point in the game when they are more valuable.
To convince you further, if 1 cannon starts firing on a hatchery as soon as it starts building, the cannon will take 70 ingame seconds to kill the hatchery. With the addition of 1 probe (such as the one that would have planted the nexus), the time is cut to ~30 seconds. With 2 probes, ~22 seconds, 3 ~15 seconds, 4 ~10 seconds, which will barely delay your nexus and tech. I also believe SaSe uses this to stop hatchery blocks.
Nexus first FFE openings
If you were doing a nexus first opening and got blocked, one option is to build the forge asap and get 2 cannons... you won't be able to keep the hatch from finishing, since it will take 85 seconds for your cannons to finish (giving them 15 seconds to damage the hatchery before it finishes), but the cannons will be able to kill the hatchery before a queen finishes 50 seconds after the hatchery completes (if the zerg builds immediately), or before zerglings can hatch and survive the cannon fire.
A better option, I think, is to build a forge and gateway quickly, then 1 gas, 1 cannon, and chrono out 2 zealots. You'll probably kill the hatchery before the queen pops, but if you don't, you can still kill the creep tumor before it can burrow. Zerglings can be a problem with this path, since only 1 cannon usually can't kill all the zerglings before they get away and block the nexus further or run up the ramp, but you can position your zealot(s) to kill the zerglings as soon as they pop and force them into the cannon. You can now pressure/scout with the 2 zealots, take your natural, get a cyber core and 2nd gas, and proceed as normal (usually with some kind of +1 gateway pressure).
On July 20 2012 17:31 trbot wrote: You don't need two cannons to kill a hatch before it spawns. If the toss starts a single cannon within the first 15 seconds of you starting the hatch and then starts attacking the hatch with the probe, the hatch will die before it spawns, at a cost in lost mining time of approximately 60 minerals. Even if you skip the probe and let the hatch finish, if you focus fire it with the cannon, it will die before spawning a second larva, and you'll have made gates and units while it was building, anyway (100s for hatch, 93s for gate+chrono'd zealot).
This post is helpful, I just wanted to correct that the cannon must be COMPLETED with the probe attacking by the first 15 seconds of the hatch starting, so in this case you must already have the cannon started 25 seconds before the hatch started. This is obviously unfeasible, so I still think the more viable option is to build 1 cannon within about 10 seconds of the hatch starting and pulling 3-4 probes, which will kill the hatch before it completes and keep your tech from being delayed very far. If you start the cannon within about 4 seconds of the hatch starting and have two probes attacking the hatchery, you can kill it just about when the hatch finishes, before it can spawn creep, but it's obviously safer to pull the 3 or 4 depending on how late you are.
Very very helpful research you did there. I wonder if you are taking about 2nd cannon when you just say "cannon." Because this hatch block is usually done or most effective on Antiga Shipyard when wall is at ramp instead of near nexus or Entombed Valley when first cannon placement doesn't reach hatchery. In these cases, it forces Protoss to make 2nd cannon. In other situations where only 1 cannon is required anyways, then hatch block doesn't make sense in the first place.
On August 14 2012 18:21 Orek wrote: Very very helpful research you did there. I wonder if you are taking about 2nd cannon when you just say "cannon." Because this hatch block is usually done or most effective on Antiga Shipyard when wall is at ramp instead of near nexus or Entombed Valley when first cannon placement doesn't reach hatchery. In these cases, it forces Protoss to make 2nd cannon. In other situations where only 1 cannon is required anyways, then hatch block doesn't make sense in the first place.
Technically the times when you need to start a cannon and/or attack with probes wouldn't change, but you are correct in that the hatch block would be much more effective when the wall is not near the nexus. Nevertheless, I still see it on all maps frequently enough to look into, so I figured I would post my results here. I should also mention that it's possible to wall on Antiga at the nexus, though there are problems with that as well, namely your base is more open to early aggression, later runbys, and it can be more cumbersome to defend against muta, since you can't run stalkers freely from your natural up your main base ramp, since there's a pylon and forge blocking.
So when are you supposed to put down the block and when do you send your drone scout? 13 scout, 15pool, 16 hatch blocking nexus if you natural is blocked or something like 10 scout into 14-15 hatch first blocking nexus, then pool? What are the pros/cons of these (or other versions) and should I get lings to go with the broodlings?
I'm looking to do it to mess with their timings without sacrificing too much economy or attention. I tried the first version a few times but they could often make a cannon+zealot to force a cancel. If they already have a forge or gw building, should I just cancel the hatch right away and make an evo chamber instead? Looking for a rough gameplan. Thanks!
1 zealot has too little dps to force a cancel. If he's going 1 gate expand, the hatch block probably could do a reasonable amount of damage. Of course, if his gateway is already done, I probably wouldn't do it, because chronoing zealots at that point could make things dicey. Lings are still pretty efficient against unupgraded zealots, you just don't want 3 zealots standing around your 6 lings when they pop.
I don't know the zerg side of things, can't give input on when zerg scouts or when they take natural with this build other than what the OP said.
On August 14 2012 17:37 Doomball wrote: Just wanted to add some more numbers into this thread. This is directed towards killing the hatchery before it completes so that creep from the hatchery doesn't land just using forge tech, no chronoing zealots or going for a +1 4 gate.
Using Liquipedia numbers, [lots of numbers]
Hatch still has 1 armor while building, right? So that reduces probe dps by 20% (5-1=4 per attack), cannon dps by 5%.
I feel like a zerg who lets the hatch complete will end up playing, for at least a little while, a zvp of two bases against one, which is significantly better than three bases against two. FFE is focused upon getting that fast expansion, and because it leans so heavily on that, I think hatch block disruption is at least worth using, if not advantageous.
There's a lot of theorycraft around that purports to "prove" that the hatch block isn't worth it, but as a player who hatch blocks preferentially to putting down an expo hatch, I really really like the position it puts me in. Pylon blocks have died to my initial lings by the time I go for the expo, and afterwards, toss is either clearly worried about a queen or lings and I can drone, or is not worried about lings so I can just build all lings, including from the proxy hatch, run in alongside the broodlings on hatch death, and overpower the cannons. The threat of that all-in should haunt every FFE player who sees the hatch block, and of course would add some variety to the first 6 minutes of ZvP matches.
EPT
photon cannon
