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On August 24 2013 02:49 dasfewfawdx wrote:
PvZ: How do you hold fast speedling agresssion into baneling bust with a 1 gate expo on maps with a wide natural ramp (ie akilon)?
My main issues with this are having a wall off in time and scouting.
As for the wall off, I feel like the natural response for zergs to seeing a 1 gate expo is to get a ton of speedlings and instantly move them across the map to try to poke off at your wall before your cannon finishes (timing at about 5:15ish I think). Do you need to chrono out more gateway units to defend until then?
As for scouting though, it's fairly safe (I think) to assume they're going to mass speedlings if you see a 14/14 opener considering their expo/droning are going to be really delayed, but how do you figure out if there's going to be a baneling follow-up once the zerg has full map control with their zerglings?
A 1 gate expo gets the wall up in time before speed finishes and long before the first inject of zerglings pop. Across standard rush distances, if the zerg makes pure lings after a 14 pool finishes, the most lings he can have in your natural before your wall is complete is 8. This is really easy to scout though, because you can simply check whether or not he's pooling three larvae as the pool finishes. If he starts three eggs immediately, they're zerglings. Zerg can't afford to get both a queen and three pairs of zerglings with a 14/14. If he was making drones he wouldn't have larvae pooled. Your wall should be complete by 5:05 maximum. The most important part is that you don't lose the building probe -- pulling 2-3 probes to help the zealot and make sure the wall goes down helps.
You can scout banelings by hiding a probe where lings aren't likely to find it. The best spots usually aren't on the edge of the map, and not near his third. At 5:00 check his third, then swing into the natural and check how many drones are mining, then finally, if your probe isn't dead yet, try and get into main and actually see the gas mining/baneling nest. No third, few to no drones in the natural, and mining more than 100 gas is pretty indicative of some kind of all-in (usually banelings). Also note that you're generally right though that 14/14 is pretty much a clear sign of aggression. They can't send enough zerglings to deny your wall AND thoroughly scour the map for the scouting probe at the same time. If they don't get aggressive at all then they've only put themselves behind so it doesn't make that big of a difference if you blindly react with defense. And Teoita is correct that Zerg can't reactively punish a 1 gate fe with speed. Unless he sends an insanely early drone scout, a 14/14 is almost always a blind gamble.
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I saw Rain use a colossus first macro build today against Taeja. However, instead of the normal passive build, he made a warpprism while the robo bay was under construction. The moment Taeja moved out, around 10 minutes into the game, he warped in 3 zealots in the mineral line. Has anyone tried this on ladder? My fear is that 500 minerals is a considerable investment, and if my opponent goes for the 'fuck it' bull rush I might not be able to hold it. Any tips?
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Italy12246 Posts
I always do it with templar builds and i hold off medivac timings just fine, the 600 minerals should be no big deal with correct execution.
However, keep in mind you will be able to build 2 obs instead of 3 before starting colossi (unless you want to delay colossi a bit), so defending drops can be tougher.
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On August 25 2013 08:05 Kinon wrote:
I saw Rain use a colossus first macro build today against Taeja. However, instead of the normal passive build, he made a warpprism while the robo bay was under construction. The moment Taeja moved out, around 10 minutes into the game, he warped in 3 zealots in the mineral line. Has anyone tried this on ladder? My fear is that 500 minerals is a considerable investment, and if my opponent goes for the 'fuck it' bull rush I might not be able to hold it. Any tips?
Yes I have tried it and it can potentially do huge amounts of damage. Those 500 minerals are generally worth it if you fight in a good area.
However, this is massively more effective in the late game when you can do this in like 2 places at once with dts. Then shit gets hilariously crazy and often times this in conjunction with an even army trade can straight up kill Terrans.
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If I send a gateway scout in PvT on a 2 player map, is there a fool proof way to determine whether the terran is doing a gasless opening or getting an early reaper?
I'd feel pretty confident to go nexus before cybernetics core against pretty much anything except a reaper opening.
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Italy12246 Posts
Imo the only situation when it's worth it is if you see a low ground cc first. In any other situation (including 1rax fe) you should get your cyber first imo.
That said, no, if he walls off fully you won't be able to tell the difference in time to decide to skip your cyber core.
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Well, the players I face never go cc first and generally wall off, so there's no point in even scouting early on in most cases. I guess this kind of opening would have to be a metagame build against opponents that typically favor non-reaper openings then.
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United States4883 Posts
On August 26 2013 03:39 vhapter wrote:
Well, the players I face never go cc first and generally wall off, so there's no point in even scouting early on in most cases. I guess this kind of opening would have to be a metagame build against opponents that typically favor non-reaper openings then.
There's honestly not a lot of perks for going 17 nexus as opposed to a MsC expand (21 nexus). You can do a MsC expand 100% blind and still be safe against virtually everything (there are several pro games of players holding 11/11 rax with it). I guess the only real perk of putting down a nexus at 17 is that it probably won't get ebay blocked?
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Italy12246 Posts
Yeah it's a really small thing so if i were you i'd just msc expand every time tbh.
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On August 26 2013 03:51 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2013 03:39 vhapter wrote:
Well, the players I face never go cc first and generally wall off, so there's no point in even scouting early on in most cases. I guess this kind of opening would have to be a metagame build against opponents that typically favor non-reaper openings then. There's honestly not a lot of perks for going 17 nexus as opposed to a MsC expand (21 nexus). You can do a MsC expand 100% blind and still be safe against virtually everything (there are several pro games of players holding 11/11 rax with it). I guess the only real perk of putting down a nexus at 17 is that it probably won't get ebay blocked?
When I go msc expand, I can deal with early reapers because my msc comes out early enough to fend it off. But I don't think that's doable with an even faster nexus, I don't think I can get enough gas for that, even if I delay my wg research. I don't think so... maybe... but I'd have to do some tweaking and I think that's a lot of gas.
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On August 26 2013 03:29 vhapter wrote:
If I send a gateway scout in PvT on a 2 player map, is there a fool proof way to determine whether the terran is doing a gasless opening or getting an early reaper?
I'd feel pretty confident to go nexus before cybernetics core against pretty much anything except a reaper opening.
Theres no way to determine if he went 13 gas, but you can camp your probe at his rax and wait to see what the first unit he builds is. Reapers take nearly twice as long as a Marine, so you'll know its a reaper before it even finishes.
On August 26 2013 03:51 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2013 03:39 vhapter wrote:
Well, the players I face never go cc first and generally wall off, so there's no point in even scouting early on in most cases. I guess this kind of opening would have to be a metagame build against opponents that typically favor non-reaper openings then. There's honestly not a lot of perks for going 17 nexus as opposed to a MsC expand (21 nexus). You can do a MsC expand 100% blind and still be safe against virtually everything (there are several pro games of players holding 11/11 rax with it). I guess the only real perk of putting down a nexus at 17 is that it probably won't get ebay blocked?
Main one really is that you aren't as behind vs a CC first, despite vhapter rarely fighting CC first.
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Just checked how many probes I got ahead with a 13 gate 17 gas 17 nexus, and apparently I only got one extra probe by 5:20 compared to a 1 gas msc expand. Not worth it. I guess nexus first is the go to build if I'm going to do this blindly.
How about greedier thirds against terran? Does anyone have any experience with greedy thirds after a msc expand or something along those lines? I wonder if it's possible to cut enough corners to do that without being too vulnerable.
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Italy12246 Posts
It's possible but really hard to pull off imo. Check out First's games this weekend if you're interested in that style.
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Yeah, I watched his games. Though what First did on Whirlwind seemed a bit too hardcore, probably an auto-loss to an opponent that does any fast factory build or even just something slightly aggressive. I'll rewatch that game, I might get some ideas.
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a 17 nexus is a big difference compared to a 21/23 nexus in pvt...you have better economy to keep it short but I would only advise to do 17 nexus on a 4 player map like whirlwind
I've been doing fast thirds against terran...the only time I was able to pull this is off is if they dont go for fast tech (starport)...now scouting it is up to you...I generally try to chronoboost out a sentry so I can scout early and decide if I should stay on 2 base or if I can grab a quick 3rd
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On August 26 2013 06:29 .kv wrote:
a 17 nexus is a big difference compared to a 21/23 nexus in pvt...you have better economy to keep it short but I would only advise to do 17 nexus on a 4 player map like whirlwind
I've been doing fast thirds against terran...the only time I was able to pull this is off is if they dont go for fast tech (starport)...now scouting it is up to you...I generally try to chronoboost out a sentry so I can scout early and decide if I should stay on 2 base or if I can grab a quick 3rd
You mean nexus first, right?
Based on my benchmarks, a 13 gate 17 gas 17 nexus only gives me a single extra probe by 5:20 (which is when my nexus finshes when I go msc expand) and more energy for chrono boost, which translates into another probe maybe, but that's it.
Now, I noticed if I go gateway --> pylon --> nexus and do not cut probes, building my assimilator before and cybernetics core only as resources allow, I can get about 3-4 extra probes by 5:20. But I guess if you're doing that blindly, you might as well go nexus first anyway.
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My ideas about going for a fast third so far:
Right now, I'm thinking about sitting on a single sentry + msc with 3 gateways open if there's no early reaper, while getting observers (4:40 robo) and adding a third at about 6:20-6:30. I think it shouldn't be much harder to fend off a regular widow mine drop (not gas first), since my observer scouts the starport timing before the drop actually occurs. Maybe I can add a forge at some point to get a cannon per mineral line just in case I scout a widow mine drop (this could be a bit too expensive though), although not sending probes to my third for a little while is probably safe enough and more realistic.
Against a standard medivac timing, I should have 3 bases up and running at about 10:00, 66 probes total. This includes a 4-observer network to spot drops, aside from my initial scouting observer, 6 gateways as usual, a colossus, and all the stuff we usually have.
Thoughts?
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don't see the point of it unless you are terran, cause mules.
you won't have the resources to saturate all your bases anyway, you'll have to cut probes to not just die.
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Italy12246 Posts
Nah fast thirds kind of like that were definitely doable in WoL. They fell out of fashion in HotS but they can work out.
I doubt you can have a robo, 3gates, and a third by 6:20 (which is a full minute before an "average" widow mine drop hits), not to mention a forge and cannons. The econ just isn't there.
I don't know about the specifics like probe count and tech though; i've never done fast third stuff. The only exception was in WoL when sometimes i got eng bay blocked and went full zerg, taking my third and then my nat on maps with easy 3 bases like, say, Entombed. I totally yolo'd it, so i can't comment on specific builds.
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I've kind of tried this build a few minutes ago and it's definitely possible to get 66 probes by 10:00. With a standard msc expand build, I already get 44 probes at about 7:40-8:00 with my current build. As long as my third is done by 8ish minutes, it shouldn't take more than 2 minutes to saturate it. For each nexus I have, I should be able to get about 4+ probes per minute. So in 2 minutes I should be able to get about 24+ probes, which is more than I actually need.
As long as I scout no aggression and cut units very hard (like I said, a single sentry + msc) until the actual medivac timing hits, I can even get 2 forges at about 8 minutes, start my colossus on time, and add 3 gateways at about 8:30, and then a twilight. If I need to make units earlier, then I'll have sure have to delay my extra gateways (or my 2 forges + twilight), but aside from a marine poke into medivac timing, I probably won't need these extra gateways so early anyway.
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What is probably more scary is having to defend 3 bases this early at 10 minutes. But I don't think my army would necessarily die in a direct engagement. I think I'll do this build vs the AI just to upload the replay and clear things up. I guess a replay in this case is better than words.
Btw Teoita, I meant starting my third at 6:20. I can either start my third at 5:40ish and then start gateways 2 and 3 at 6:20 (way too greedy imo), or get 2 gateways at 5:30 to be on the safe side against marine pokes and get my third at 6:20 instead.
So, if some kind of marine poke hits me at 7 minutes or something, I can warp in some units and photon overcharge my natural to buy myself time for a second warp cycle. But if I go triple nexus before gateways 2 and 3 and only get a single sentry, then I'll certainly get my ass kicked by any marine pokes, for obvious reasons.
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EPT
