|
i just started playing zerg (terran has so many different f***in build orders >.<) and have a couple questions
1) in ZvT, terran has alot of 2-2 marine and few mine (or tank) and they push out, do you have to flank everytime or when do you attack? *not very specific but sorry haha
how could you detonate the mines with a few lings when terran army is all above it?
do you have to be very aggressive against terran?
2) in ZvZ, i never played against a zerg yet, but is there a way to avoid a bling vs bling micro battle early game?
are early roaches viable?
3) when do you start taking all gases in all 3 races when going standard?
|
You need metabolic boost in case the Protoss doesn't expand and 4 gates you or something
I've already explained this in extreme detail in my previous post. In no way do you "need" metabolic boost with an extreme early gas. It's an accepted norm to get the early gas but once you understand you're own inject timings AND Protoss Warp-in timings you begin to understand how easy it is to hold 4 gate pressure while getting Ling speed a bit later.
Previous post on the subject in spoilers:+ Show Spoiler +A lot of it comes down to personal preference and comfort. I typically follow a macro heavy style (plus my micro is pitiful ). Most people prefer to get gas first but I've found I do just fine w/out it "early" (I'll start speed at 6:25).
Some food for thought. A Hatch started at 4:00 will be completed 1:20s quicker than a Hatch started at 5:20. In that time 2 full inject cycles could be performed on the early Hatch and 1larvae every 15s naturally for about 5 larvae. So that's what? 4 larvae per inject x2 + 5 = 13 more larvae from the early Hatch. That's quite a few more drones and or zerglings.
A 1 gate expand, into 4 gate pressure will also be lighter on probes than normal because they put down the extra gates earlier than normal and are already making units. So long as you hold with your initial slow lings (which you should! I mean, you have 3 Hatch / 3 Queen injects available) you will be in a strong position.
Also, by starting speed at 6:25 with the 1st 100g means it will finish around 8:15 which also coincides with (approximately) the Protoss's 3rd Warp-in cycle (1st 6:40-50s, 2nd 7:20-30s, 3rd 8:10-20s). With the extra larvae from the early Hatch you would have enough zerglings to kill his 1st 5 zealots (1st warp in) and 2nd 4 zealots (2nd warp in) and kill any proxy pylons.
|
On August 21 2013 00:25 azngamer828 wrote:
i just started playing zerg (terran has so many different f***in build orders >.<) and have a couple questions
1) in ZvT, terran has alot of 2-2 marine and few mine (or tank) and they push out, do you have to flank everytime or when do you attack? *not very specific but sorry haha
how could you detonate the mines with a few lings when terran army is all above it?
do you have to be very aggressive against terran?
2) in ZvZ, i never played against a zerg yet, but is there a way to avoid a bling vs bling micro battle early game?
are early roaches viable?
3) when do you start taking all gases in all 3 races when going standard?
Yeah try to flank as you can, ur goal is to avoid splash dommage (split) and to surround Terran to prevent him to hit and run your army. I don't know what is your league but keep in mind even GM players don't do flank perflectly, so try to do it but you'r macro is more important (if you have +30 supply, even if u don't flank perfectly you will kill Terran army).
An usefull trick is to use patrol trick you make ur army patrol , then shift to him (a bit hard to explain, this will split a bit your army and minimize splash dommage). Or another trick is to select a smal group of lings, and go into mines and try to do as friendly fire as possible. Then when all mines are on cooldown engage with ur main army.
1) Agressive ? Personnally i (diamand Z EU) have better results doing a 3 base 10-11min roach bane push, than sitting and wait for the late game. But it's cause this push is a kind of counter of the meta : 3CC, marinnes/mines whithout tank.
Late game vs Terran is really hard to win for Zerg because Terran army are very cost effective, and cheap and they have a lot of harass abilities while a very strong defence. But for training, macro game is better than cheese.
2) Yeah u can do the snute build, but i think it will be really frustrating at low level, beacause if you fail to wall and defend ling/bane build, you will be crushed. i think you'd better to learn how to control ling/baneling because it's maybe the funnest part of ZvZ. The rule is to make group of 2 banelings (2 is the number which kill baneling so you can kill a lot of banelings with 2), You need only 1 to kill lings. So the goal is to kill ennemies baneling with 1 zerglings, to kill a lot of lings with some banelings and to kill a lot of banelings with 2 banelings ^^.
3) Euh sorry, it really depends of the BO. Just look for some BO for this answer.
|
Hello,
On the map "Akilon Waste", how could you deny a Terran or Protoss 3rd base ?
Generally, they walled or put enough def on their natural ramp and just kill the rocks to disallow side access to their 3rd.
Thanks for any help.
|
On August 21 2013 01:54 Kaltezar wrote:
Hello,
On the map "Akilon Waste", how could you deny a Terran or Protoss 3rd base ?
Generally, they walled or put enough def on their natural ramp and just kill the rocks to disallow side access to their 3rd.
Thanks for any help.
vs T :speed Roach/Bane bust before the 3rd starts to be efficient
vs P : Earlier speedling with later third hatch I guess. Or build ~20 lings at the 7:00 timing to go and deny it.
Most of the times, its a bit gamble. So you should just play greedier when you see that they are taking a safe greedy 3rd.
|
Is there a guide somewhere about dealing with cannon rushes? Even if I go 15p 16h and leave an overlord at the natural, I have to cancel my natural, so I figure I must be doing something wrong. Also, I've noticed in pro games the cannon rusher always just leaves the bare minimum behind the mineral line at the natural. Sometimes in my games a cannon rusher will make more cannons and cover the ramp from the main to the natural so I can't leave. What am I supposed to do about that?
|
On August 21 2013 00:25 azngamer828 wrote:
i just started playing zerg (terran has so many different f***in build orders >.<) and have a couple questions
1) in ZvT, terran has alot of 2-2 marine and few mine (or tank) and they push out, do you have to flank everytime or when do you attack? *not very specific but sorry haha
how could you detonate the mines with a few lings when terran army is all above it?
do you have to be very aggressive against terran?
2) in ZvZ, i never played against a zerg yet, but is there a way to avoid a bling vs bling micro battle early game?
are early roaches viable?
3) when do you start taking all gases in all 3 races when going standard?
1) This is advice that I once heard that I have had some success with: terrans want to place mines, walk in front of the mines, start shooting at you, and then back up past the mines so they hit you as you follow. You can try to set off the mines by sending a small number of lings over the path they just came from, because that's probably where the mines are and there probably won't be any units to kill your lings before they set off the mines. Ideally you'll drag some mine shots onto their army and do friendly fire.
2) I recommend the 2 base roach build that is on imbabuilds.com. I guess this is probably the snute build that someone else mentioned.
|
On August 21 2013 02:37 schwza wrote:
Is there a guide somewhere about dealing with cannon rushes? Even if I go 15p 16h and leave an overlord at the natural, I have to cancel my natural, so I figure I must be doing something wrong. Also, I've noticed in pro games the cannon rusher always just leaves the bare minimum behind the mineral line at the natural. Sometimes in my games a cannon rusher will make more cannons and cover the ramp from the main to the natural so I can't leave. What am I supposed to do about that?
Same here. I see a lot of pros go hatch first even in case of FFE and most of the time the P does not canon rush at all! This drives me mad. Last time I tried in unranked to hatch first 5-6 games and the P would always reat by canoning and I lost every one of these. One time he just put 3 pylons UP MY RAMP! I tried everything from preemptively put drones on hold in hot spots and pulling 4 drones per building as soon as they are put down, chasing the probe etc., I just end up losing my hatch and get stuck on 1 base forever or being forced to take a remote expansion, which is just awful.
If pros almost never canon rush, its that it must be bad in some way but it is beyond my comprehension as it seems like an autoloss to me. :/
|
On the map "Akilon Waste", how could you deny a Terran or Protoss 3rd base ?
That map sucks ^^. Too easy for anyone to get 4 bases which can lead to a very drawn out game and splitting the map, static defense, etc, etc. On the bright side, New 2013 Ladder Map Pool is coming out so simply "veto" Akilon  .
how could you detonate the mines with a few lings when terran army is all above it?
Nightmare for any Zerg! You really only have 2 choices man. 1, You have to have better micro and mechanics than your opponent (imo - in order to control the engagement perfectly as well as take care of rest of your bases) or deviate from the norm Ling/Bling/Muta play style. 2. Different play style is Infestor/Roach/Hydra and transition to whatever upon Hive tech. This composition is very strong vs Bio/Mines w/out tanks/few tanks(assuming you land your fungals).
3) when do you start taking all gases in all 3 races when going standard?
Lots of standards out there man. I'll just throw down some timings up to 4gas (past that is about scouting/player discretion). Vs Terran: Gasless opening 2x gas at 5:30 and 3rd/4th in the 7:30 - 8:45 range. You get a broad range because this is style dependent. A quicker Muta tech would get them sooner while a more macro based +1/1 Ling/Bling could delay gases quite some time...it helps get 4th/5th Hatch down before 10:00 and a powerful mid game ling/bling flood.
Vs Protoss I feel the accepted standard (Pool, Hatch, early 3rd Hatch) is 2x gas in the 5:50 - 6:00 range, followed up with 2x gas in the 7:00 - 7:30 range. Vs Zerg it's all over the place. If you open gaseless while blocking off, spine, and Queen defense then you will start 4x gas right when your about to hit max 2 base mineral saturation. The rest of the z v z gas timings rely on what you scout and your own early game plan.
|
Last time I tried in unranked to hatch first 5-6 games and the P would always reat by canoning and I lost every one of these.
If you drone scout use that drone to offensive Hatch in his main, while simultaneously taking another hatch at another expo. He'll be forced to use even more resources to stop your offensive Hatch, if he even sees it. Add an early gas too and throw in a few Roach at your offensive Hatch and you can get lots of worker kills and delay mining for a long long time.
|
On August 21 2013 07:31 DjayEl wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2013 02:37 schwza wrote:
Is there a guide somewhere about dealing with cannon rushes? Even if I go 15p 16h and leave an overlord at the natural, I have to cancel my natural, so I figure I must be doing something wrong. Also, I've noticed in pro games the cannon rusher always just leaves the bare minimum behind the mineral line at the natural. Sometimes in my games a cannon rusher will make more cannons and cover the ramp from the main to the natural so I can't leave. What am I supposed to do about that? Same here. I see a lot of pros go hatch first even in case of FFE and most of the time the P does not canon rush at all! This drives me mad. Last time I tried in unranked to hatch first 5-6 games and the P would always reat by canoning and I lost every one of these. One time he just put 3 pylons UP MY RAMP! I tried everything from preemptively put drones on hold in hot spots and pulling 4 drones per building as soon as they are put down, chasing the probe etc., I just end up losing my hatch and get stuck on 1 base forever or being forced to take a remote expansion, which is just awful. If pros almost never canon rush, its that it must be bad in some way but it is beyond my comprehension as it seems like an autoloss to me. :/
This is a pretty different situation than 15p/16h. Personally I prefer a slightly earlier pool (14p/15h) for cannon rushes. This is a pretty common opener, even from pros, and lets your pool come out earlier for those crucial extra seconds. If they're committing very hard to a cannon rush, you can sometimes just slowling allin them at their base when opening pool-first.
As for hatch-first, the situation changes somewhat. I usually open hatch-first in ZvP because of gateway openers, and just do what I can vs cannons, playing very defensively against forge-first. These are the steps I take:
1. I typically drone scout when I play hatch-first, so once I spot the forge I assign a drone to start following any scouting probes immediately. I also go 15h-14p (otherwise I'll usually delay pool to 16, or even go 3 hatch before pool vs nexus-1st).
2. If a pylon goes down, I try to send a couple of drones to hotspots. This works with limited success; oftentimes a toss can still get a cannon in a good position. If this happens I cancel the hatch and make a 3rd.
3. In the meantime, you have two offensive options. One is to proxy-hatch with the scouting drone. This can either win you the game outright if they don't see it or at least buy you a lot of time. The second is to cancel hatch at natural and build at 3rd; if he tries to cannon your 3rd, your pool should be up by this point so you can just ling-allin him or defend appropriately with lings.
4. If he cannons/pylons you anywhere where the pylons can be surrounded, IMMEDIATELY pull all your drones (well, not all for just 1 building) and kill them. Drones have enough DPS to kill pylons if they can get a surround. The situation you mention with 3 pylons up your ramp sounds like you didn't pull drones quickly enough.
You need to be very on top of your macro/multitask during cannon rushes; letting your build fail while micro'ing can easily lose you the game.
Also I'll mention Revival's response here. In Revival vs Oz (I believe) a few tourneys ago, Oz tried to cannon Revival and he didn't do any of the drone-following-probe nonsense. He simply cancels once the cannon starts warping and goes to his 3rd, relying on lings vs any additional cannoning at his 3rd, and takes care of the pylon/cannon at his natural when he can. He ended up winning this game, so apparently he doesn't think it puts you very behind to simply do this (the game seemed very even after the opener).
|
On August 20 2013 23:53 DarKcS wrote:Show nested quote +On August 19 2013 23:44 Karpfen wrote:On August 19 2013 21:21 DarKcS wrote:
Can someone link me a replay of 3 hatch or 3 hatch before pool vs CC first Terran so I can see proper muta/bane timings? They do not change if you plan on going for standard muta ling bane. It's still speed, evo chambers when you have 150 gas on 2 gases, lair, next 50 gas bane nest, next gas on spire (you can squeeze in ovy speed). If you don't scout hellions can I go lair before speed? Or is that risky.
I always go lair before speed. I also start my lair the same time with 3 hatch before pool as I do with normal hatch first.
You should always have an evo wall at the natural (so that 2 queens can block it so hellions can't runby), a spine crawler at the 3rd (if you are doing 3 hatch before pool) so that hellions can't run into your third and kill drones.
I start ling speed after lair, I do double evo 1/1 -> lair -> ling speed -> baneling nest.
|
I need help...
I would like to know the keys that uses the pros mostly for quick injection. I suppose it is F2-F3-F4 inject by selecting the queen?
Is that it?
|
Is that it?
Yes^^. But there are others yea?? Most Korean Pro's use the "hardcore" style. This doesn't hot key Queens at all and relies on Camera Hot Keys, mouse dragging, and the inject hot key button in conjunction with L mouse click.
But there are still 4 other ways, one of which is arguably the fastest but can lead to "wandering" Queens.
The 4 other ways are:
1. Backspace method: You change your base camera to backspace, and additionally you need to go to global hotkeys, Unit Management, Change Ability or A.I. Target (secondary hot key) to match that of your Queens inject hotkey button.
When I use this method it looks like GF shift + (keep holding shift down) backspace -> left click -> backspace -> left click -> backspace -> left click, etc etc. In my case G is my hotkey for the control group 0 and F is my secondary hotkey button for inject and my secondary hotkey for Change Ability or A.I. Target. You can inject something like 5-6 Hatches in less than 2 seconds with this method.
2. Individually hotkey all your Queens: It could look something like 77v left click -> 88v left click -> 99v left click. Basically you double click on a hotkeyed Queen so its centered in your screen, hit your inject hotkey and then left click.
3. Another favorite of mine. It's Camera Hotkeys in conjunction with control group of your Queens. This method is similar to the backspace but you don't have to worry about wandering Queens, which happens once you get more Hatches than Queens. For me this method looks something like:
GF -> shift + (keep holding shift) Q (my hotkey for base 1) F (Ability or A.I. Target and my 2ndary inject button) -> W (hotkey 2nd base) VF -> E (3rd base) VF -> R (4th base) VF -> etc. Should be noted I have a mouse button hot keyed to "shift". Otherwise holding down the shift button on the keyboard would make this really damn hard to do.
4: Hotkey your Queens and shift + click on the Minimap. Pretty self explanatory here. Imo this works better with people who play with "pro level" mouse settings, i.e., anything in the 600 - 1000 dpi range. Reason being your mini mouse control will be much more precise then some $ackass playing with 4000dpi (which is bad not withstanding some huge computer screen).
Imo the easiest to use is "hardcore" method, or hot key location with mouse drag, hotkey inject button, and left click. When using this method I like to keep all my Queens at the top left of every Hatchery because it makes the top to diaganol bottom, left to right click almost identical every time.
Imo the quickest way, by far is the "backspace" method. The only problems you'll run into is more hatches than Queens, but to be honest, just keep cycling through the space bar a few times and get a feel for the timing of what Hatches pop up next. This way you can make sure not to inject a Hatchery which doesn't have a hotkeyed Queen and have your Queens go all over the place.
|
On August 21 2013 07:31 DjayEl wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2013 02:37 schwza wrote:
Is there a guide somewhere about dealing with cannon rushes? Even if I go 15p 16h and leave an overlord at the natural, I have to cancel my natural, so I figure I must be doing something wrong. Also, I've noticed in pro games the cannon rusher always just leaves the bare minimum behind the mineral line at the natural. Sometimes in my games a cannon rusher will make more cannons and cover the ramp from the main to the natural so I can't leave. What am I supposed to do about that? Same here. I see a lot of pros go hatch first even in case of FFE and most of the time the P does not canon rush at all! This drives me mad. Last time I tried in unranked to hatch first 5-6 games and the P would always reat by canoning and I lost every one of these. One time he just put 3 pylons UP MY RAMP! I tried everything from preemptively put drones on hold in hot spots and pulling 4 drones per building as soon as they are put down, chasing the probe etc., I just end up losing my hatch and get stuck on 1 base forever or being forced to take a remote expansion, which is just awful. If pros almost never canon rush, its that it must be bad in some way but it is beyond my comprehension as it seems like an autoloss to me. :/
I'm going to start off by saying Defenestrator answered most of this pretty well but i feel as though a few points were off 
Anyways, the reason that most protoss don't cannon rush those pro zergs is because if the zerg knows how to deal with it then it can be very easy to stop AND if the protoss delays their nexus to cannon rush and then the zerg holds their nat then the toss is way way way behind. Almost game ending behind because they have 0 tech and 0 eco boost while the zerg has 2 bases now.
Alright, now for my preferences for dealing with cannon rushes.
As for a scouting drone, i really wouldn't advise it. the whole point of a hatch first is for the eco advantage, BUT if you drone scout you get rid of that advantage and youmight as well go pool first anyways. (This is why in ZvZ you don't drone scout, even if you go hatch first ) Just send your overlord and keep an eye on it, it shows up around the time the forge finishes anyways but will generally be too late.
So to spot the cannon rush you simply need to know when a probe will reach your base, each map is different but on most maps the probe will be there shortly after the hatch goes down which means you need to send a drone out to go around the hatch itself. this is important because i've ran into toss who send 2 probes, don't ask me why but they have just to bait my drone into chasing it while the other cannon rushes. So ALWAYS look around your hatch for this. As soon as you see there are no pylons, then start chasing that probe.
As soon as you see the first pylon (And you should see when it goes down) you need to know where the toss is going to wall off with the next 2. If the map doesn't allow for a 3 pylon wall off it is easy to hold off if you have the right reaction. (Another reason why most toss don't cannon rush pros). But as soon as you see the pylon go down the drone that is down there needs to go inside the wall off area and SIT. This is important because the drone will kill the probe due to it getting an attack or so as the probe puts down the other pylons, this essentially stops the rush and prevents the rushes that feel impossible to hold.
While that drone sits there you need to pull 4-6. 8 at most. Do not pull everything. DO NOT. If you want any chance to stay in the game either way in this game do not drop your economy down to 0 for the next 2 minutes It isn't worth it because the cannon rush is behind the mineral line. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH SURFACE AREA for all 15ish drones to attack. so you are dealing extra damage to yourself by doing this.
Now the cannon rushers i find will actually stop after my initial probe sits inside their wall, but lets say they decide too continue on anyways, with the lets say 6 drones you pulled down you need to know it takes 4-5 probes to power down a cannon before it finishes, this is 4 of those drones + the original spotting drone. While you have 1 drone chase the probe, and another that is being microed to bully it away and force it to take damage. If there are no cannons down at all, then you need to split up these drones a bit (if you're not bullying the probe away ) and put then around the pylon/pylons to make sure you can always have at least 4 drones attacking it AND so he can't juke you out and wall off with pylons before any drones get there.
If you still are afraid of the rushes then you can pull down 8 and use the extra 2 to help whittle down on the cannons.
If you stop him from walling in with the probe then you can actually use all of the drones to dance around the pylon he got down and bully the probe away so he can't get in towards the pylon to place the cannon.
Now like i said earlier, If you did it this way and hold perfectly then YAY you are ahead because the toss most likely delayed his nexus to do this to a hatch first player. If he didn't then the cannon rush would just be easier to hold and you are still ahead but not by much.
However, if you only pulled the 4-6 drones and you can't kill the cannon before it finishes then just shrug, cancel the hatch and go back to mining, hopefully during this you threw down the spawning pool BECAUSE you kept mining during it and just take your third as your natural.
Once again i'm going to say, If they delay nexus to cannon rush you and get it up, don't lose any drones. You are most likely even but probably a bit behind as long as you can get your third down in a decent manner.
If they don't delay nexus and get your nat, then yes. you are behind. But it very hard for the protoss to do this because they simply can't wall off, they don't have the minerals. This cannon rush being successful means you didn't see it till it was too late.
|
On August 21 2013 12:20 11B wrote:Yes^^. But there are others yea?? Most Korean Pro's use the "hardcore" style. This doesn't hot key Queens at all and relies on Camera Hot Keys, mouse dragging, and the inject hot key button in conjunction with L mouse click. But there are still 3 other ways, one of which is arguably the fastest but can lead to "wandering" Queens. The 4 other ways are: 1. Backspace method: You change your base camera to backspace, and additionally you need to go to global hotkeys, Unit Management, Change Ability or A.I. Target (secondary hot key) to match that of your Queens inject hotkey button. When I use this method it looks like GF shift + (keep holding shift down) backspace -> left click -> backspace -> left click -> backspace -> left click, etc etc. In my case G is my hotkey for the control group 0 and F is my secondary hotkey button for inject and my secondary hotkey for Change Ability or A.I. Target. You can inject something like 5-6 Hatches in less than 2 seconds with this method. 2. Individually hotkey all your Queens: It could look something like 77v left click -> 88v left click -> 99v left click. Basically you double click on a hotkeyed Queen so its centered in your screen, hit your inject hotkey and then left click. 3. Another favorite of mine. It's Camera Hotkeys in conjunction with control group of your Queens. This method is similar to the backspace but you don't have to worry about wandering Queens, which happens once you get more Hatches than Queens. For me this method looks something like: FG -> shift + (keep holding shift) Q (my hotkey for base 1) F (Ability or A.I. Target and my 2ndary inject button) -> W (hotkey 2nd base) VF -> E (3rd base) VF -> R (4th base) VF -> etc. Should be noted I have a mouse button hot keyed to "shift". Otherwise holding down the shift button on the keyboard would make this really damn hard to do. 4: Hotkey your Queens and shift + click on the Minimap. Pretty self explanatory here. Imo this works better with people who play with "pro level" mouse settings, i.e., anything in the 600 - 1000 dpi range. Reason being your mini mouse control will be much more precise then some $ackass playing with 4000dpi (which is bad not withstanding some huge computer screen). Imo the easiest to use is "hardcore" method, or hot key location with mouse drag, hotkey inject button, and left click. When using this method I like to keep all my Queens at the top left of every Hatchery because it makes the top to diaganol bottom, left to right click almost identical every time. Imo the quickest way, by far is the "backspace" method. The only problems you'll run into is more hatches than Queens, but to be honest, just keep cycling through the space bar a few times and get a feel for the timing of what Hatches pop up next. This way you can make sure not to inject a Hatchery which doesn't have a hotkeyed Queen and have your Queens go all over the place.
Thanks man, while I attack and there is to have high apm and I get a few second break I use the base camera method with the spamming shift+inj. key + left click.
But at start I prefer the F1-F2-F3-F4 but at a point, dealing with pressure I get troubles. I'm not EGRevivalRC .
Thank you so much for the time you spent to write this on. Peace.
|
On August 21 2013 14:48 UltiBahamut wrote:Show nested quote +On August 21 2013 07:31 DjayEl wrote:On August 21 2013 02:37 schwza wrote:
Is there a guide somewhere about dealing with cannon rushes? Even if I go 15p 16h and leave an overlord at the natural, I have to cancel my natural, so I figure I must be doing something wrong. Also, I've noticed in pro games the cannon rusher always just leaves the bare minimum behind the mineral line at the natural. Sometimes in my games a cannon rusher will make more cannons and cover the ramp from the main to the natural so I can't leave. What am I supposed to do about that? Same here. I see a lot of pros go hatch first even in case of FFE and most of the time the P does not canon rush at all! This drives me mad. Last time I tried in unranked to hatch first 5-6 games and the P would always reat by canoning and I lost every one of these. One time he just put 3 pylons UP MY RAMP! I tried everything from preemptively put drones on hold in hot spots and pulling 4 drones per building as soon as they are put down, chasing the probe etc., I just end up losing my hatch and get stuck on 1 base forever or being forced to take a remote expansion, which is just awful. If pros almost never canon rush, its that it must be bad in some way but it is beyond my comprehension as it seems like an autoloss to me. :/ I'm going to start off by saying Defenestrator answered most of this pretty well but i feel as though a few points were off Anyways, the reason that most protoss don't cannon rush those pro zergs is because if the zerg knows how to deal with it then it can be very easy to stop AND if the protoss delays their nexus to cannon rush and then the zerg holds their nat then the toss is way way way behind. Almost game ending behind because they have 0 tech and 0 eco boost while the zerg has 2 bases now. Alright, now for my preferences for dealing with cannon rushes. As for a scouting drone, i really wouldn't advise it. the whole point of a hatch first is for the eco advantage, BUT if you drone scout you get rid of that advantage and youmight as well go pool first anyways. (This is why in ZvZ you don't drone scout, even if you go hatch first ) Just send your overlord and keep an eye on it, it shows up around the time the forge finishes anyways but will generally be too late. So to spot the cannon rush you simply need to know when a probe will reach your base, each map is different but on most maps the probe will be there shortly after the hatch goes down which means you need to send a drone out to go around the hatch itself. this is important because i've ran into toss who send 2 probes, don't ask me why but they have just to bait my drone into chasing it while the other cannon rushes. So ALWAYS look around your hatch for this. As soon as you see there are no pylons, then start chasing that probe. As soon as you see the first pylon (And you should see when it goes down) you need to know where the toss is going to wall off with the next 2. If the map doesn't allow for a 3 pylon wall off it is easy to hold off if you have the right reaction. (Another reason why most toss don't cannon rush pros). But as soon as you see the pylon go down the drone that is down there needs to go inside the wall off area and SIT. This is important because the drone will kill the probe due to it getting an attack or so as the probe puts down the other pylons, this essentially stops the rush and prevents the rushes that feel impossible to hold. While that drone sits there you need to pull 4-6. 8 at most. Do not pull everything. DO NOT. If you want any chance to stay in the game either way in this game do not drop your economy down to 0 for the next 2 minutes It isn't worth it because the cannon rush is behind the mineral line. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH SURFACE AREA for all 15ish drones to attack. so you are dealing extra damage to yourself by doing this. Now the cannon rushers i find will actually stop after my initial probe sits inside their wall, but lets say they decide too continue on anyways, with the lets say 6 drones you pulled down you need to know it takes 4-5 probes to power down a cannon before it finishes, this is 4 of those drones + the original spotting drone. While you have 1 drone chase the probe, and another that is being microed to bully it away and force it to take damage. If there are no cannons down at all, then you need to split up these drones a bit (if you're not bullying the probe away ) and put then around the pylon/pylons to make sure you can always have at least 4 drones attacking it AND so he can't juke you out and wall off with pylons before any drones get there. If you still are afraid of the rushes then you can pull down 8 and use the extra 2 to help whittle down on the cannons. If you stop him from walling in with the probe then you can actually use all of the drones to dance around the pylon he got down and bully the probe away so he can't get in towards the pylon to place the cannon. Now like i said earlier, If you did it this way and hold perfectly then YAY you are ahead because the toss most likely delayed his nexus to do this to a hatch first player. If he didn't then the cannon rush would just be easier to hold and you are still ahead but not by much. However, if you only pulled the 4-6 drones and you can't kill the cannon before it finishes then just shrug, cancel the hatch and go back to mining, hopefully during this you threw down the spawning pool BECAUSE you kept mining during it and just take your third as your natural. Once again i'm going to say, If they delay nexus to cannon rush you and get it up, don't lose any drones. You are most likely even but probably a bit behind as long as you can get your third down in a decent manner. If they don't delay nexus and get your nat, then yes. you are behind. But it very hard for the protoss to do this because they simply can't wall off, they don't have the minerals. This cannon rush being successful means you didn't see it till it was too late.
Thank you for this detailed explanation. I'd really like to train and be able to put off a hatch first every game, so I guess it's just a matter of practice.
But here is a last question : if it is "generally" possible to hold off a canon rush by hatching first, why would you ever go 14 or 15 pool ? Some say it's a "safe" opener and some pros do it. Is it something map-dependant ? Or they just don't want to bother microing vs canons ?
Would you recommend hatching first on ladder every ZvP for me (I'm top dia btw) assuming I can implement the tricks you suggested, do you think it is statistically leads to more wins or should I play as safe as I can ?
|
Hello there,
I am currently on top diamond and want to improve my macro gaming, for ZvT I intend learning the muta ling baneling playstyle as I went with roach timing pushes only so far.
I found this recent game of Scarlett: http://www.gomtv.net/2013gstls1/vod/72096 (game starts at 15:00)
which pretty much is exactly what I want to play. I basically need a build order that includes this 1/1 baneling timing and a 3 base transition to muta play. I couldn't find a replay of this game or a similar build order in common places like imbabuilds or liquipedia. I'd appreciate any directions. Thanks
|
On August 21 2013 18:46 DjayEl wrote:
Thank you for this detailed explanation. I'd really like to train and be able to put off a hatch first every game, so I guess it's just a matter of practice.
But here is a last question : if it is "generally" possible to hold off a canon rush by hatching first, why would you ever go 14 or 15 pool ? Some say it's a "safe" opener and some pros do it. Is it something map-dependant ? Or they just don't want to bother microing vs canons ?
Would you recommend hatching first on ladder every ZvP for me (I'm top dia btw) assuming I can implement the tricks you suggested, do you think it is statistically leads to more wins or should I play as safe as I can ?
Because if you go hatch first and they proxy 2 gate you, you are 99% of the time dead It is almost impossible to hold a proxy 2 gate with a hatch first, not impossible but very very very hard. (it relies on the toss letting you get a spine up lol). If more zergs started to do hatch first all the time then you would notice a rise in proxy 2 gates. (I think it happened in the beta actually). hence why the pool first is the safe build, it stops every early game cheese and should let you get up your nat safely. Also if pros get a rep for always Hatch firsting then it becomes an easy win for toss who know about it, which is another reason why they don't.
But yeah, the only map dependencies it has is how easy for a protoss to cannon rush you. Some maps it is super easy to set up that 3 pylon wall around the probe and others it takes like 4 pylons, the other is how far away the protoss is from you, so how soon will the cannon rush start.
I'm not sure i would recommend doing it 100% of the time, BUT when i wasn't going my swarm host style (which uses an early pool ) i use to go hatch first pretty much every game if the protoss allowed me to. The only times that i didn't is if the protoss probe reached me before i sent out the drone. Which means you will never get the hatch down as any toss should be able to block it. So just throw down the 15 pool and keep droning while your drone nibbles at the probe at your nat. These timings are close and i can't remember exactly what the toss did to get the probe here early enough. Might have been a map like neo planet though
Edit: Also, yeah, it comes down to practice. but even then there will just be some games that your drone is just off and they will succeed, or they do it anyways and you just wont have the drones to get it down. Those one suck but you just need to see what you could have done differently I think it is quite doable for a diamond zerg to do, Just remember to have at least 1 drone chasing the probe :3
|
On August 21 2013 18:46 DjayEl wrote:
Thank you for this detailed explanation. I'd really like to train and be able to put off a hatch first every game, so I guess it's just a matter of practice.
But here is a last question : if it is "generally" possible to hold off a canon rush by hatching first, why would you ever go 14 or 15 pool ? Some say it's a "safe" opener and some pros do it. Is it something map-dependant ? Or they just don't want to bother microing vs canons ?
Would you recommend hatching first on ladder every ZvP for me (I'm top dia btw) assuming I can implement the tricks you suggested, do you think it is statistically leads to more wins or should I play as safe as I can ?
Honestly vs a good cannon rusher you probably end up behind - Revival is pretty much the only player I've seen who has recovered well vs ocannon'ing, and I think he clearly understands the timings of the build if he does get ocannon'd. The main reason I have started doing it is simply because few toss's open forge-first nowadays, and hatch-1st is pretty much the best opener vs anything that's not ocannoning. I think the main reason pros started going back to hatch-first is because protosses started opening gate-first or nexus-first, often without probe scouting, when HOTS came out.
Also I think it's very possible to defend vs proxy 2gate with hatch-first, as long as you open 15h 14p, but I haven't done it in so long it's hard to say =P
The bottom line is that if you DO want to be safe vs any opener, opening 14p/15h is the way to go. 15h is a risk.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
