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[G] PvZ Fast Third into Zealot/Immortal Timing - Page 4

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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kmillz
Profile Joined August 2010
United States1548 Posts
November 02 2012 01:31 GMT
#61
lmao i love the main picture: "wtf is this" hahaha. great guide too, as always from kcdc
heyitskez
Profile Joined November 2010
Australia58 Posts
November 02 2012 02:33 GMT
#62
Nice guide, have come across this from a few gm's, pretty scary if u don't see it coming and flood roach/hydra
"The mark of a man if not how he treats his friends, but his enemies."
MysteryMeat1
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United States3292 Posts
November 02 2012 04:36 GMT
#63
On November 02 2012 06:31 kcdc wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 02 2012 06:17 city42 wrote:
A couple things:

1) The pre-broodlord timing should have 12 gates instead of 10.

2) Double forge is essential for this build. Infested terrans are the biggest enemy of a non-colossus push, and having 2/2 or 3/2 gives you a huge upgrade advantage over them. Chargelots with +2 armor and GS are fantastic in this situation. Additionally, having armor sets you up nicely for the late game, as +3 armor chargelot warpins via a prism are incredibly good vs. defensive spines. As others have mentioned, StarDust aka SsonLight has been pioneering this style lately and has been pretty successful with it.

Double forge does have a downside: your margin for error is thinner when setting up the third base. A dedicated roach push can be tricky to hold, so you have to know what you're doing. The observer must also stay alive to sniff out any muta tech, because unscouted mutas will end the game immediately.

Personally I think this style is better than the normal colossus pre-broodlord timing because of the easy warp prism harass follow-up. It's possible to prevent the zerg from ever getting a deathball even if the push doesn't outright kill him. Even a mothership won't save you from broodlord infestor, so the best way to counter the deathball is by not allowing it to be made.

Good post.

I've gone back and forth on 10 gates vs 12. I think 10 is a good choice if you're taking a fourth and teching mothership behind the push because the extra infrastructure/tech keeps your money low for at least the start of the push. Once you're no longer building immortals and you have your mothership started, you do start to pile up a resource bank, so extra gates are necessary unless you're going straight into a stargate transition--in which case you need more stargates instead.

If you want to go for a stronger push with slower mothership but more aggressive warp prism harass, 12 gates is the better option.

I wouldn't call double forge essential, but it sounds like it should be a good addition. Infested terrans get mowed down by storms pretty quickly. On top of the reduced zergling and infested terran damage, I'd be most interested in armor upgrades for the improved broodlord/broodling tanking. 3/3 zealots can be surprisingly good against broodlords if you have storms to wear the broodlords down and stalkers to finish them off. Having zealots really slows the damage you take, allowing the storm damage to take effect.



Im still not entirely sure about getting armor vs getting shield upgrades. I feel like getting shield upgrades sets you up nicer for transitioning but getting armor makes your push just a tiny bit stronger. The reason i like going shields is because they are more beneficial for archons as well as carry over to voids and mothership.
"Cause ya know, Style before victory." -The greatest mafia player alive
NET
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States703 Posts
November 02 2012 06:23 GMT
#64
Lol at the manlot comment. Good bw times.

What do you think about using the hallucinate to perhaps make some fake colossus and show it to the zerg in a watch tower or to an ovie. They may over compensate which should lead to an easier time in the main fight. The obs is already good at the scouting part, and if anything we can use it to make fake zealots to soak up some fungal damage.

So far this build hasn't lost for me yet. I played some mid to high masters that went the standard ling/roach into infestor to the eventual brood lords. Very impressive meta-game build in my opinion.
"Dark Templar are the saviors of the Protoss Race." -Artosis
Shikada
Profile Joined May 2012
Serbia976 Posts
November 02 2012 10:21 GMT
#65
Another awesome guide kcdc.

One thing I couldn't quite get from it is the number of sentries you get. I get the feeling it's on the low side, but I would like some precise numbers please.
Teoita
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Italy12246 Posts
November 02 2012 10:48 GMT
#66
On November 02 2012 19:21 Shikada wrote:
Another awesome guide kcdc.

One thing I couldn't quite get from it is the number of sentries you get. I get the feeling it's on the low side, but I would like some precise numbers please.


I've asked him in the thread; his answer was:

On November 01 2012 21:54 kcdc wrote:
1 sentry when I build the nexus. 3 more sentries (4 total) for my production round immediately following the zealot poke. I recommend putting one of the low-energy sentries at your natural and the higher-energy sentry along with 2 of the new ones at your third. Eventually, you want to get up to about 6 sentries with this build. If he's going for the 3-base roach all-in, you can make more if you need them.

ModeratorProtoss all-ins are like a wok. You can throw whatever you want in there and it will turn out alright.
Kyuki
Profile Joined February 2008
Sweden1867 Posts
November 02 2012 12:05 GMT
#67
I really like this build concept and I have for quite a while tried to figure out how to incorporate zealot/immortal to get quicker tech and econ, but just havnt gotten it down... This is exactly what I was trying to achieve and it works really well for me so far! I make 2 forges though, since I really feel like you can fight with broodlords if it gets to that with high armor stalkers, while you want for mothership.. This allows you to keep up the agression!

Thumbs up
Mada Mada Dane
kcdc
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2311 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-11-02 17:35:21
November 02 2012 17:03 GMT
#68
Replay showing how to pin mutas with a gateway attack. I stayed on 4 gas, but 6 would have been better. Because I was too low on gas, I couldn't transition to storm, so the attack was more all-in than it really needed to be.

http://drop.sc/270345

And a couple weird games that swing back to the standard 3-base push after unusual starts:

http://drop.sc/270348
http://drop.sc/270349 (Dude has 220 APM. How do people do that?)

Those last 2 games show the power of 3/3 zealots vs broodlords and in drop harass.
Treehead
Profile Blog Joined November 2010
999 Posts
November 02 2012 18:38 GMT
#69
Great guide and build kcdc. I had given up on 3-base play, but I like this. It's smart. The genius of using zealots for early defense is that in conjunction with Immortals and cannons, they can't actually kite the zealots without taking more damage than they deal.

The third still seems unsafe to me, though I'll take your word that given ample micro, you can hold it.

I think I'm going to try this out in the beta, too. It's complete theorycrafting, but I'd imagine your frequent pushes would work well with the MsC's recall ability - and that any hole in your defenses in WoL would be shored up by Purify.
kcdc
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2311 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-11-02 18:46:24
November 02 2012 18:44 GMT
#70
One more replay:

http://drop.sc/270374

It was against GM player ToXSiK who I'm pretty sure I'd never beaten before, although we've played probably 10 times. The guy owns me, so the fact that I finally took a game off him (and that he complimented the build before leaving) is a good sign that this is a strong play style.
usNEUX
Profile Joined March 2012
United States76 Posts
November 02 2012 20:16 GMT
#71
So any thoughts on how to play against this from the Z perspective? This build is brutal
Unter allem Diebesgesindel sind die Narren die schlimmsten. Sie rauben euch beides, Zeit und Stimmung. - Goethe. NEVER GIVE UP NEVER SURRENDER.
kcdc
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2311 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-11-02 20:28:58
November 02 2012 20:26 GMT
#72
On November 03 2012 05:16 usNEUX wrote:
So any thoughts on how to play against this from the Z perspective? This build is brutal

Well, it's a relatively stable macro style, so you should mostly expect to just have to outplay your opponent to beat it. But beyond standard play with good execution, I've seen two off-beat styles that totally kicked my ass.

(1) Infestation pit fake into hidden spire. He saw my obs as his lair finished, dropped an infestation pit for me to see, and then proxied a spire with an OL. It was on Condemned Ridge which is way too big, and I didn't catch on at all. 20 mutas showed up in my main and it was GG.

(2) Infinity spine crawlers. This game was on Cloud Kingdom, and the guy built enough zerglings to hold my opening zealot pressure, and then built NOTHING but drones, spines, and infestors up until his broodlords popped at 15 minutes. He must have had 60+ spines on the map by the time my push hit around 14 minutes. I wasn't totally out of the game because I had storm and a mothership on the way, but he was able to get a huge infestor broodlord ball up really fast because he spent no gas on anything else. I held his first attack, but eventually lost. Broodlords are really good.

Please please please don't do #2 tho. You're not going pro and nobody has fun if you do that.

w3jjjj
Profile Joined April 2007
United States760 Posts
November 02 2012 20:44 GMT
#73
Ha, this is why I'm seeing this style on ladder. You are to blame! First couple of games I was literally like the picture you posted, "WTF is this?".

I started to do a ling/bane/infestor composition instead of pure ling infestor, add roaches when archons start to be added into the mix, works pretty good so far in my games, low master level. What do you think about this approach?

Chuck Norris can salvage his opponent's structures.
kcdc
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2311 Posts
November 02 2012 20:56 GMT
#74
On November 03 2012 05:44 w3jjjj wrote:
Ha, this is why I'm seeing this style on ladder. You are to blame! First couple of games I was literally like the picture you posted, "WTF is this?".

I started to do a ling/bane/infestor composition instead of pure ling infestor, add roaches when archons start to be added into the mix, works pretty good so far in my games, low master level. What do you think about this approach?

Could work okay--depends on macro, control, and most importantly, when P gets storm. I'm not sure how you're planning to use the banelings, but they're going to be useless as soon as P gets storm. P may be relatively short on forcefields, so perhaps the banelings could be useful in the midgame before storm completes. It's hard to imagine them being better than roaches for that purpose, but I haven't played against it.
BuddhaMonk
Profile Joined August 2010
781 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-11-02 21:36:21
November 02 2012 21:26 GMT
#75
Very nice guide.

Chargelots are ridiculously underrated against Zerg. Especially against infestor based armies with no broodlord support (like the timing in your guide!). Trying to fungal a stream of 25 chargelots coming at you from every angle while micro'ing the infestors back is no easy task and they're totally expendable!
ToXSiK
Profile Joined November 2010
United States83 Posts
November 04 2012 04:51 GMT
#76
Ah, so this is the build you beat me with. This build is very strong but I do want to say one thing here, if you see zerg making mass units of of four bases (roach infestor/ling) and going for a more delayed GS, I would recommend waiting to hit until their spire is completely done and they waste supply in corrupters for the broods. This timing hits super fast tho so i don't know really what you need to worry about.

The biggest thing that fucks zerg over with this build is that they only see 2 gas taken by the toss, which usually means gate all in if they haven't seen the third base, so if zerg gets caught not teching to lair and pumping out roach ling before they should be, they are in a mountain of trouble once toss has the third up.

So two things: Deny scouting of the zerg so they can't see you take the third or your lack of mass gates, and watch out for mass roach on 4 base (roach ling drops) as I see a low tech high unit count build could cause this build some trouble.
Grandmaster Zerg and Protoss playing for teamogaming.net! Please check out my stream: www.twitch.tv/toxsikcraft!
brofestor
Profile Joined October 2012
Singapore101 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-11-04 05:00:16
November 04 2012 04:55 GMT
#77
On November 04 2012 13:51 ToXSiK wrote:
Ah, so this is the build you beat me with. This build is very strong but I do want to say one thing here, if you see zerg making mass units of of four bases (roach infestor/ling) and going for a more delayed GS, I would recommend waiting to hit until their spire is completely done and they waste supply in corrupters for the broods. This timing hits super fast tho so i don't know really what you need to worry about.

The biggest thing that fucks zerg over with this build is that they only see 2 gas taken by the toss, which usually means gate all in if they haven't seen the third base, so if zerg gets caught not teching to lair and pumping out roach ling before they should be, they are in a mountain of trouble once toss has the third up.

So two things: Deny scouting of the zerg so they can't see you take the third or your lack of mass gates, and watch out for mass roach on 4 base (roach ling drops) as I see a low tech high unit count build could cause this build some trouble.


watch leenock vs oz game 7 recently on mlg, on only 3 bases Leenock multi pronged attacks on the main(ol drops) and third tore Oz apart.
kcdc
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2311 Posts
November 04 2012 15:25 GMT
#78
On November 04 2012 13:55 brofestor wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 04 2012 13:51 ToXSiK wrote:
Ah, so this is the build you beat me with. This build is very strong but I do want to say one thing here, if you see zerg making mass units of of four bases (roach infestor/ling) and going for a more delayed GS, I would recommend waiting to hit until their spire is completely done and they waste supply in corrupters for the broods. This timing hits super fast tho so i don't know really what you need to worry about.

The biggest thing that fucks zerg over with this build is that they only see 2 gas taken by the toss, which usually means gate all in if they haven't seen the third base, so if zerg gets caught not teching to lair and pumping out roach ling before they should be, they are in a mountain of trouble once toss has the third up.

So two things: Deny scouting of the zerg so they can't see you take the third or your lack of mass gates, and watch out for mass roach on 4 base (roach ling drops) as I see a low tech high unit count build could cause this build some trouble.


watch leenock vs oz game 7 recently on mlg, on only 3 bases Leenock multi pronged attacks on the main(ol drops) and third tore Oz apart.

I can't watch the VOD so I don't know what style Oz went for, but I will say that this zealot/immortal composition makes it much easier to deal with drops and multi-pronged attacks because you can split your force effectively, and you don't have to land good forcefields in order to trade well. It's sort of like how Terran drops are easier to handle if you open twilight into templar than if you open up colossi. Sentries and colossi like to ball up, but zealots can split apart and do their own thing.
kcdc
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2311 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-11-05 17:33:50
November 05 2012 14:51 GMT
#79
Anyone have replays using this build? I'd like to see how others use it and how more Zergs respond. If any lower level players want to post replays, I'm also happy to give advice/feedback.

Also, I'm updating the guide to recommend 12 gates. After more testing, 12 gates feels stronger than 10. I'm finding that if you're able to find soft spots in Zerg's defenses to force unit trades, you need faster unit reinforcement, and you don't need an early mothership.

I've gotten pretty good at keeping the infestor energy at manageable levels and keeping Z's economy in check, and I'm finding that with +3 armor, broodlords aren't even scary. I'm usually 1 armor upgrade ahead of Z's melee upgrades, which means broodlings deal all of 2 damage per shot. If you did a single forge style without armor upgrades, the broodlings would deal 5 to 6 damage per shot depending on Z's upgrades. So the armor upgrades cut broodling damage by 60+%.

It's amazing how much this helps your army. I've gone into fights against broodlords with less than half his army value where I thought I was 100% dead and I wound up winning easily. Besides the armor upgrades, I also tend to have a good archon count, and I find archons to be better than colossi at cleaning up broodlings. They really keep your stalkers clean of broodlings after your blink-under.

It seems like I'm winning almost all my games where Z goes for infestor broodlord (particularly on Ohana where it's hard to spine up the whole map). Maybe that comp isn't OP after all....
DropTester
Profile Joined April 2010
Australia608 Posts
November 06 2012 05:18 GMT
#80
I've been playing with this build and my execution of it is still really bad but the more I play, the better I am at it. I remember seeing similar builds in the gsl but with stalkers as well. Do you usually include have many stalkers in your pre broodlord timing?
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