On September 04 2012 05:54 Monkeyballs25 wrote: I'd love if you could do a guide on stopping a 2gate zealot rush in PvP while still doing a somewhat normal build. Like say the 3 stalker rush. http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/3_Stalker_Rush_(vs._Protoss) I had a game where I scouted the Protoss, didn't see a core, panicked and built a 2nd gateway instead of the build I was going for. Turns out he was just bad and dropped his core at 18, but then I lost to a 4gate as my own core and gas was way late. If I knew I could stop it while playing standard(ish) or doing a smaller alteration it wouldn't be nearly as bad.
of course. I'll be doing a lot of 2 gate coverage this week so I'll make sure to get to that.
I like the general idea, watched a few videos, but some are not really according to topic.
A Zerg should never get 3 Pylon blocked in the first place with 1 drone patrolling at 15 and another one chasing the probe and eventually building a hatch.
Your ZvP Immortal Sentry allin hits at 12:30. Of course you have infestors out by then and roflstomp all day over this. A proper immortal sentry allin hits at 10:30. The protoss in your video just built sentry/Immos and attacked when he felt like it at some point, this is by no means an immortal sentry allin. If the allin hits you at 10:30 and you invested in a shitton of tech which isn't even ready (upgrades / infestation pit), you straight out lose to this.
I also feel like you lost way too much in that 11/11 rax. Sadly you didn't pull up the units lost or worker count, but you lose way too many drones. Remember you can't actually choose to disengage with zerg having slow melee units and terran having range 5 units. You lose stuff on the way in AND on the way out.
In so many of those videos, your opponent is playing bad and you'd lose if that wasn't the case. Prime example is 10pool vs hatchfirst vid, 10pool doesn't lose ever.
I'd like to play some games against you and we can see if "holding X with ease" is right. :p
On September 04 2012 18:07 HoMM wrote: In so many of those videos, your opponent is playing bad and you'd lose if that wasn't the case. Prime example is 10pool vs hatchfirst vid, 10pool doesn't lose ever.
I'd like to play some games against you and we can see if "holding X with ease" is right. :p
in your prime example, that's actually a bad example because you can hold 10 pool vs hatch first...not only in the game that I showed, but there are many pro games that I've watched/casted where a 10 pool is held by a blind 15 hatch. The big thing is simply being able to micro the drones properly. What I've never seen is a 15 hatch hold a 10 pool WITH drones pulled (where he brings 8 drones, his lings, and drops a spine). As of now that's the only way a 10 pool will auto win from what I've seen.
On September 04 2012 18:01 Mahtasooma wrote: I like the general idea, watched a few videos, but some are not really according to topic.
A Zerg should never get 3 Pylon blocked in the first place with 1 drone patrolling at 15 and another one chasing the probe and eventually building a hatch.
Your ZvP Immortal Sentry allin hits at 12:30. Of course you have infestors out by then and roflstomp all day over this. A proper immortal sentry allin hits at 10:30. The protoss in your video just built sentry/Immos and attacked when he felt like it at some point, this is by no means an immortal sentry allin. If the allin hits you at 10:30 and you invested in a shitton of tech which isn't even ready (upgrades / infestation pit), you straight out lose to this.
I also feel like you lost way too much in that 11/11 rax. Sadly you didn't pull up the units lost or worker count, but you lose way too many drones. Remember you can't actually choose to disengage with zerg having slow melee units and terran having range 5 units. You lose stuff on the way in AND on the way out.
While I will agree with your sentry immortal all in comments (and that's why I'm remaking that video this week), I think it's silly to say something like you should never get 3 pylon blocked. Everybody gets pylon blocked at some time in their life and it's good to have an understanding of how the game flows when it happens rather than just ignoring it.
Example: http://de.twitch.tv/mstephano/b/330792766 << stephano is pylon blocked in, basically has a similar reaction to my pylon/forge block where he gets upgrades, grabs his lair, gets speed/infestors, and holds it off. His order is a bit different but it's still a good show that even the top zerg player in the world gets pylon blocked. Not everyone wants to waste their time/economy patrolling a drone if they can just know how to react once a situation occurs.
In the 11/11 rax I did what was necessary, aka holding it off. You could simply say, "Well every zerg should scout the typical 11/11 rax positions when he scouts and then you wouldn't have this problem" and sure it's good to try and scout those, but you aren't always going to find it and it's good to have an idea of how to hold. And the pullback was necessary in my opinion because I would've lost too all my drones had I stayed and then had nothing to recover with. 11/11 is one of the hardest early cheeses to hold and very much depends on how many scvs he pulls. Also, if you do scout it early, you can just go 14/14 and hard counter it, but that's too easy to show.
A pro needs to cut every corner he can, but for anything below top grandmaster, it's always worth it to patrol that drone for some 20seconds. I never get 3 pylon blocked. Pulling two drones makes it much harder for the drone to pylon block your expo, too. Whatever you do, you will always be behind after cannon block and anything after that is extremely gimmicky and luck dependant. If he went blink stalker off of that instead of immo/sentry (which is pointless), it'd have been GG.
I agree with your 11/11 rax statements, it's really hard to defend. I think you were behind but you still end up winning, which is cool. It's of course impossible to scout the location of the double rax reliably and I agree with your 9drone pull. Defending 11/11 is always wonky.
On September 05 2012 00:13 Mahtasooma wrote: A pro needs to cut every corner he can, but for anything below top grandmaster, it's always worth it to patrol that drone for some 20seconds. I never get 3 pylon blocked. Pulling two drones makes it much harder for the drone to pylon block your expo, too. Whatever you do, you will always be behind after cannon block and anything after that is extremely gimmicky and luck dependant. If he went blink stalker off of that instead of immo/sentry (which is pointless), it'd have been GG.
If you think it'd be GG, I recommend you watch the episode defending the forge/pylon block where he goes blink stalker against me and loses. I don't think you are behind after a cannon block, you just need to get your upgrades and lair and then expand after (or if you can hide a hatchery you can go 2 base muta or nydus or drops or anything).
And not all players patrol the drone, so I'm showing all of those players who do not do that what they can do if they get 3 pylon blocked instead of just panicking and pulling all their drones.
What's with the last few pages of this thread focusing on criticism?
The fact is that Llama's strategies are strong reactions against the all-ins presented in this series. If a silver player uses the strategies to defend low silver all-ins, he'll do well; then, it's on the all-in player to learn to all-in better, with micro and build adjustments; then it's on the defender again to take it up yet another notch, and so on. This goes all the way up until you're Marine King Prime, who can cheese and defend cheese like he's got super powers.
Here's a few defenses which are awesome btw: (free today, maybe later this week, due to anniversary)
I can beat a lot of guys who use llama's strategies, and I lose to a lot too- people are watching his videos. A lot of it is execution- typically, they die after making some big mistake or another, or I die after I make a mistake.
On September 05 2012 08:18 Natespank wrote: What's with the last few pages of this thread focusing on criticism?
The fact is that Llama's strategies are strong reactions against the all-ins presented in this series. If a silver player uses the strategies to defend low silver all-ins, he'll do well; then, it's on the all-in player to learn to all-in better, with micro and build adjustments; then it's on the defender again to take it up yet another notch, and so on. This goes all the way up until you're Marine King Prime, who can cheese and defend cheese like he's got super powers.
Here's a few defenses which are awesome btw: (free today, maybe later this week, due to anniversary)
I can beat a lot of guys who use llama's strategies, and I lose to a lot too- people are watching his videos. A lot of it is execution- typically, they die after making some big mistake or another, or I die after I make a mistake.
As one of the ones who was a bit criticizing, I didn't just criticize. I just wanted him to provide perhaps a more solid example of the immo/sentry hold. I've helped him find a really good P and the new version should be up soon. The reason for my asking of this was because the timing itself of immo/sentry is so important. Any deviation means a much easier kill for the Z player. It was very important to show the validity of the suggested counter-strategy against a "proper" push.
On September 05 2012 08:18 Natespank wrote: What's with the last few pages of this thread focusing on criticism?
The fact is that Llama's strategies are strong reactions against the all-ins presented in this series. If a silver player uses the strategies to defend low silver all-ins, he'll do well; then, it's on the all-in player to learn to all-in better, with micro and build adjustments; then it's on the defender again to take it up yet another notch, and so on. This goes all the way up until you're Marine King Prime, who can cheese and defend cheese like he's got super powers.
Here's a few defenses which are awesome btw: (free today, maybe later this week, due to anniversary)
I can beat a lot of guys who use llama's strategies, and I lose to a lot too- people are watching his videos. A lot of it is execution- typically, they die after making some big mistake or another, or I die after I make a mistake.
As one of the ones who was a bit criticizing, I didn't just criticize. I just wanted him to provide perhaps a more solid example of the immo/sentry hold. I've helped him find a really good P and the new version should be up soon. The reason for my asking of this was because the timing itself of immo/sentry is so important. Any deviation means a much easier kill for the Z player. It was very important to show the validity of the suggested counter-strategy against a "proper" push.
Yeah it's okay nate, I appreciate when people give good feedback like that. The immortal sentry hold wasn't proper and needed some work so I am happy he spoke up and I was able to remake it against a GM player.
next video is up. Defending a proxy 2gate in your base. I think on any 1v1 map it's always useful to take 5 extra seconds to look around (as you see many pros do) so that's what I think this video should teach as well as how to respond.
Something I started doing when I did play toss that is really important against p is sim city. A 2 gate will be really easy to defend if you build a funnel against nexus with pylon and your gates so your zealot is blocking their zealots to your stalker. Thoughts?
On your PvT vids, you go 1 gate expand when showing how to defend the 10 minute +1/stim/medivac push and 2 gate expand when showing how to defend a 2 rax.
This is not good because a good terran can make a 2-3 rax allin and a 1 rax gasless expand look nearly identical. How do you hold both with the same build? Do you just have to flip a coin?
On September 06 2012 02:38 phidget wrote: Something I started doing when I did play toss that is really important against p is sim city. A 2 gate will be really easy to defend if you build a funnel against nexus with pylon and your gates so your zealot is blocking their zealots to your stalker. Thoughts?
I'm curious as to what you mean exactly but it sounds good in theory. this of course is assuming you are getting a gas and a stalker (which is a harder way to hold it in my opinion, though not impossible).
On September 06 2012 06:06 jalstar wrote: On your PvT vids, you go 1 gate expand when showing how to defend the 10 minute +1/stim/medivac push and 2 gate expand when showing how to defend a 2 rax.
This is not good because a good terran can make a 2-3 rax allin and a 1 rax gasless expand look nearly identical. How do you hold both with the same build? Do you just have to flip a coin?
Well the reason I'm changing up my build is because I'm trying to show that you can hold with various things (since not everyone opens up 1 gate expand all the time). It's NOT a coin flip though because I can react later. So let's say in my 2 rax video I am planning for 1 gate expand with my 1 gas, when I get to his base I can see has a refinery (in my video he goes 2 rax with refinery to add marauders) and from there I can add 2 more gates if I want. If he's going for a gasless 2rax, I would chrono out my stalker and get him over near his base as fast as possible to see what was up (Then I could react if I saw no expand).
The big thing in the game you saw though was that I scouted a gas and 2 rax, so that was a pretty big tell to prepare. Most 2 rax hit a little later than that one (because they try to be more discrete about it) but then you have wg and can get more units so I think they aren't quite as effective usually.
I don't really think you can play aggressive styles with 40 APM or less. You can play defensive, yes, but... I don't see how as let's say, playing TvZ, in late game, you're dropping two separate bases while continuing to macro, and threatening a third base iwth your main army, you can stay under 40 APM. It just doesn't seem possible.
EPT
