Good evening dudes and dudettes, this is Luppa from PsiStormGaming, I have been asked a lot about this build order since I have had a lot of success with it on GM/High Masters ladder so I decided to share it with you all!
Essentially it is a quick 3 ravager rush into macro. The ravagers do a lot of damage at the front of the terrans base and force them to bring scvs/repair/lose units and fall behind in their build. Behind this you are getting all the drones you need, and can follow up with whatever style you want!
MAPS
Strong = Prion Terraces, Ulrena, Central Protocol
Medium = Lerilak Crest, Ruins of Seras
Not the Best = Dusk Towers, Orbital Shipyard
The best maps are maps with low rush distance and where the main wall only defends their main and not their natural. While your aggression is going on you want to deny mining from their natural, which you cant do on dusk towers or orbital shipyard. Also, 4 player maps can be dependent on the overlord pathing, if your overlord doesnt reach their base in time to see their ramp then it can be tricky.
14 gas (2 gas initially, 3 gas when pool is half way done, *THIS IS MIN-MAXING AND NOT ESSENTIAL) 14 overlord w/ extractor trick 16/17 Pool (This is personal preference. A later pool gets you a hatchery before roach warren, and a quicker pool accelerates the timing of the ravagers) Drone to 20 supply Hatchery + roach warren whenever possible After this, make your queen as quickly as possible (This is to deal with the first reaper) Then after your queen, make your overlord Then as your overlord pops up, you should be able to make 3 roaches straight away!
***SEND YOUR FIRST OVERLORD OVER TO THE TERRANS RAMP, KEEP IT CLOSE ENOUGH TO SEE/ATTACK THE WALL, BUT NOT CLOSE ENOUGH TO BE KILLED BY MARINES, VERY IMPORTANT!*** The reason I get the gas so early is because making the ravagers as soon as they spawn accelerates the build as ravagers move quicker than roaches. So you want to make them at your base.
Immediately after your roaches, you want to make your next overlord asap, as you will not be able to make your 2nd queen + ravagers until you have more supply
And then send your ravagers straight to his base and MAKE THEM DRONES!
You want to macro up essentially as you are pressuring their front with the ravagers, my favourite response is to get nearly full 2 base saturation, and do a ling baneling bust. (speed with next 100 gas, and bane nest with next 50) But this is personal preference. Although against non hellion openings, this is extremely strong as a followup! And against hellion openings, a later roach bane timing is an almost certain win
EXECUTION OF THE PRESSURE
So when you are at the terrans base, there are a couple of things you need to keep in mind of, and I went through some of them in the video.
- When attacking bunkers, aim your bile shots at the edge of the bunker, this does damage without you being in range of the bunker so it is free damage - DONT BE RISKY! Take the guarenteed damage IE. Supply depos/scvs/marines/mining time/addons - KEEP THE RAVAGERS ALIVE FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. You are best off leaving if they get a banshee or a tank out. - KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR WHAT HE HAS IN HIS BASE! If they are using their reactor on their barracks and not their factory, they arent making hellions, things like that. These can determine the best course of action after the aggression.
Thank you so much for your time, I hope you have enjoyed this guide and maybe learnt something. You can follow me on twitter @Luppasc2 for when im streaming ladder with commentary and analysis, and there are some other coaching videos I uploaded an age ago on my youtube. Let me know if you're having success with the build! And happy laddering!
ALSO PLEASE CHECK OUT @psistormgaming on twitter, or on their cool website http://psistorm.com/main/
Anything early ravager is a pain on Ulrena. I agree with that kind of pressure. I can't get behind delaying the hatch this long to achieve this brand of aggression. It'll throw terrans in a tizzy first time like many wacky builds, but I think the 2hatch earlier droning, later attack is the better.
slight variation i went 14overlord double gas 2x drones cancel 1 extractor 17p 18h. still got 3 ravagers to the enemy by 3:20 on ulrena. pretty much the same.
On December 01 2015 20:02 PepperMintTea wrote: Seems a pretty good way to make sure the Terran is being honest.
I haven't used ravagers in ZvT because it feels like an all in but this looks like an interesting idea.
Do you feel there is a minimum amount of damage you have to do with the ravagers?
There are a couple of things that are 99% guaranteed with this build. One is at least 1 supply depot should go down, as 1 bunker can not cover the auto-attacking of the ravager. Another is guaranteed minerals used to repair a bunker(from consistent bile shots), along with lost mining time, which as I said puts the terran behind in their build. Also, its guarenteed that they can not mine from their natural until they get either a starport unit, or enough bio to push down the ramp. Some of the desired damage includes scv kills, addon kills, and even marine kills.
As long as the execution is safe enough, there is guaranteed damage to be had and also you can get away with leaving with the ravagers at full health. If you have more questions, let me know!
On December 01 2015 18:20 Danglars wrote: Anything early ravager is a pain on Ulrena. I agree with that kind of pressure. I can't get behind delaying the hatch this long to achieve this brand of aggression. It'll throw terrans in a tizzy first time like many wacky builds, but I think the 2hatch earlier droning, later attack is the better.
I understand that there are variations of this build like a double gas hatch first variation that jaedong has done, but what I find that I cannot get behind mining out of 2 gas (which includes sacrificing an extra drone for the extractor). This being that by the time you start making drones to saturate your natural anyways, the hatchery in my build is up just in time, so the lateness of the hatchery does not hinder you as much as getting the ravagers out early gains you. With a normal seige tank build, a tank can be out for like 4 minutes, and if u sacrifice time to get there, you may not get the damage done before the tank is out. But again, if you want, try both ways and see which one you like more. <3
On December 01 2015 16:14 Cascade wrote: This can work pretty well in 2on2 and higher as well, right? Making the whole other team freak out a bit while I and my ally macro up.
I dont have experience in 2v2, but I imagine if you want to allow your ally to macro up, you could go for a different variation and commit more to the aggression, IE getting 2 gas and delaying the hatchery for ages.
ON THE OTHER HAND. You could both commit a bit to being aggressive, depending on your teammates race and your opponents race. I wouldnt recommend this build against zerg opponents, as an early speedling rush from your opponent would make it hard for ravagers to get any worth.
But that being said, try it out and let me know how it works! Id love to hear about any success stories people are having <3
I did the strat on gm mmr... let me tell you firstly that it's awesome and works wonders. On the other hand, I think your follow ups won't work at higher level of play, because once you open with this build, the terran is going to be extremely prepared for any kind of follow up.
I advise playing extremely greedy, especially on big maps, focus on making queens as soon as possible with 2 evos, scout for banshee tech and make lair accordingly. Have a ctrl grp of lings ready to counter attack if he decides to move out, and the victory should be yours.
On December 02 2015 08:56 crbox wrote: I did the strat on gm mmr... let me tell you firstly that it's awesome and works wonders. On the other hand, I think your follow ups won't work at higher level of play, because once you open with this build, the terran is going to be extremely prepared for any kind of follow up.
I advise playing extremely greedy, especially on big maps, focus on making queens as soon as possible with 2 evos, scout for banshee tech and make lair accordingly. Have a ctrl grp of lings ready to counter attack if he decides to move out, and the victory should be yours.
The response works at gm, and the main reason is it denies complete scouting and preparation of the natural base. He won't be situated at his natural base for very long before you push in with a Ling bane attack, making it extremely unlikely he will have a bunker in time. The biggest thing you're going to be up against is 2 siege tanks, of which you can dive onto anyways.
I obviously would not recommend Ling bane against someone going reactor hellions. But the Ling bane all in follow up has worked way more than it has not. But again as I said, if you want to go extra greedy into the macro game that is completely fine. You do you boo boo, but the Ling bane all in follow up is great vs tank play if your macro is good and the execution was on point
Here's the link to the game. I doubt you can hold the low ground for too long vs tanks and marines to be honest. Unless I did something wrong, let me know!
What do you feel like is the best transition after this? From my experience staying on Roaches against Terran hasn't been a great idea since WOL and I'm sure bio mows them down just as good as before.
Should you go for like a Roach/Hydra/Viper timing? Or immediately go to ling/bling/muta since they will start preparing tanks and marauders once they see you commit to the Roach tech?
How does this fare if the Terran responds by opening 1/1/1 and tank/medivac drops? I imagine that would be quite strong against this, but it's speculation, not sure if you've encountered it.
On December 02 2015 12:26 DarKcS wrote: 3 roach rush is back bois...all hail the meta.
Actually, on that note: As a noob team-player, is there a 7-roach-rush version that turns (some of) the roaches into ravagers? :D I guess it'd be similar to the normal 7RR, but with a quick second gas or something somewhere.
Imagine that together with a 14 pool speed or something. Trying to wall off the lings with zealots? Ravagers says no! Trying to repair the supply in the wall? Ravagers says no! Managed to get a force field on the ramp? Guess what?? RAVAGER SAYS NO!! > : (
I guess reapers, hellions and adepts should be able to hold it off decently though... Maybe.
On December 02 2015 12:26 DarKcS wrote: 3 roach rush is back bois...all hail the meta.
Actually, on that note: As a noob team-player, is there a 7-roach-rush version that turns (some of) the roaches into ravagers? :D I guess it'd be similar to the normal 7RR, but with a quick second gas or something somewhere.
Imagine that together with a 14 pool speed or something. Trying to wall off the lings with zealots? Ravagers says no! Trying to repair the supply in the wall? Ravagers says no! Managed to get a force field on the ramp? Guess what?? RAVAGER SAYS NO!! > : (
I guess reapers, hellions and adepts should be able to hold it off decently though... Maybe.
i suppose it's possible you could add gas immediately after building the first round of roaches to afford a couple of ravagers, but i think it would be extremely allin because you'd be going below full mineral saturation to afford that second gas. might be strong though
update edit: i just tried this today against a terran who blindly opened tank (no scout of my build) and it went really horribly, for what it's worth, lol
On December 02 2015 21:09 poelinca443 wrote: How does this work if T gets a fast tank out ? How soon can they get the tank out ?
A standard tank comes out just after 4 minutes, I haven't got any idea about if they were to really rush it, but if that is the case, they can't take their natural without Medivac support (bile shots can kill the tank as its seiging up) and as long as you take care scouting what they have and make sure they aren't counterattacking you with a drop or banshees, u can drone up 2 based safely.
Against a tank drop the best thing to do is drone up safely and make 2 extra queens, and straight after make a lair. Getting mutas against early star port is always a good option, so make sure your poke at the front is accounting for all the terrans options. Ie. If you don't see anything, theyre hiding something, most likely banshees, so make queens if you don't see factory tech.
On December 02 2015 14:55 Beelzebub1 wrote: What do you feel like is the best transition after this? From my experience staying on Roaches against Terran hasn't been a great idea since WOL and I'm sure bio mows them down just as good as before.
Should you go for like a Roach/Hydra/Viper timing? Or immediately go to ling/bling/muta since they will start preparing tanks and marauders once they see you commit to the Roach tech?
Thanks for the replay, totally fucking awesome.
If you want to go down the macro route and not follow up with the Ling bane attack that i do, u can take a third base and make loads of drones. I would recommend a roach ravager composition as it is very popular in zvt at the moment, and maybe you could do this after quick mutas to stay safe against star port play (banshees, tank drops, liberator Harrass) and from that go into roach ravager. If you watch pro games you can see how successful that composition is, I HOPE THAT HELPS
On December 02 2015 15:11 FabledIntegral wrote: How does this fare if the Terran responds by opening 1/1/1 and tank/medivac drops? I imagine that would be quite strong against this, but it's speculation, not sure if you've encountered it.
Yes, this would be quite a tricky to navigate, but you should still have a bit of time to drone a bit and hopefully get up to mutas as quick as possible. Along with this try to get extra queens and hold them contained within their main base for as long as possible, and hopefully just come out in the economic advantage.
As soon as they produce a Medivac and a tank to deal with your ravagers, try to get them back to your base as soon as possible and make queens and some lings.
This is a nice strat that allowed z for the first time can apply pressure on terran in early game. However, how do you use your roach/ravagers conbo vs terran, since I still feel that Bio can still kill roaches ravagers without much difficulty. I'm high master btw, so I wanna discuss about high level games. Thanks.
On December 05 2015 14:05 signofwish wrote: This is a nice strat that allowed z for the first time can apply pressure on terran in early game. However, how do you use your roach/ravagers conbo vs terran, since I still feel that Bio can still kill roaches ravagers without much difficulty. I'm high master btw, so I wanna discuss about high level games. Thanks.
I dont really like going roach ravager out of this build, I tend to go ling bane muta as terrans usually respond with non anti-air units to deal with the ravagers, IE banshees medivacs and tanks. Whenever the aggression is over I tend to go into quick mutas and a third, so thats what I do.
As for the zergs that go roach ravager, its very strong at the moment. The ravagers are very good at dealing with bio as their aa shreds marines very quickly, and the roaches are able to tank a lot more early. The addition of the ravagers adds that extra bit to the composition that it needs to be viable, as you hold a lot of supply of units and can counter things like seige tanks which used to destroy the composition. Watch jimrising on twitch, he has a very high success rate with roach ravager in zvt. The only thing that is hard to deal with in this comp is drops, but again, some players go mutas and THEN transition into the roach ravagers, so at least you have some way to deal with drops. Otherwise, static defense and some left behind units are imperative. I hope this helps, if not, let me know! Thanks
I got a version that gets 4 ravagers out but, ignores ling speed revolving around 16 pool and hits a few seconds later. I like this idea though. It taught me a bit more about the match up.
I worked a version out that seems to be a bit faster : 13 overlord 17 extractor 16 pool 19 hatch 18 roach warren 17 queen 19 gas 18 overlord then 3 roaches into ravagers. The drones of the second gas should be pulled out and metabolic boost can be researched soon after. I'm only gold so this should be tested by better players than me.
On December 09 2015 02:45 Sulice wrote: I worked a version out that seems to be a bit faster : 13 overlord 17 extractor 16 pool 19 hatch 18 roach warren 17 queen 19 gas 18 overlord then 3 roaches into ravagers. The drones of the second gas should be pulled out and metabolic boost can be researched soon after. I'm only gold so this should be tested by better players than me.
So, I tried out all three of our builds and I found that out of the three yours hits a little bit sooner but, is way more all in. You don't set yourself up to well to macro behind it with your econ on the graphs being a little under Luppa's and mine. Im just low/mid masters but, I think your build is a decent all-in... Hard to say haven tried on ladder but, you def hit sooner with less of an econ.
I also did your build 4 different ways to see where the econ can be maxed.What gave the weakest econ was a 14/14 OL Double extractor trick. The econ dipped off towards the end of some reason but, was identical to 13/14 OL
A second gas subtracts mineral income [Your build has 3 drones less on minerals.] Leaving you with 13/16 [520 Minerals Pr/Min] 2/3 [Twice]
I wasn't starved for gas when the attack hit; it hits sooner and It's very all-in. This would be why. Additionally it's nice because you hit before the first tank can come out of a 1/1/1
The way I did it was that after the first 100 gas I would take a drone out of the existing gas and do 2 on each.
After the first 3 roaches was non-stop ling production.
Luppa's build so far seems superior. @ 90 sec he has the higher mineral income but, levels off later. I think economically our builds are similar but Luppa's is superior because he has the additional tech.
On December 10 2015 10:06 terranfun wrote: I don't think this build is any good, because the terran can just make widows mines in time and all your ravagers are dead.
Ravagers counter mines. Infact youll put yourself further behind if you make mines instead of a tank or banshee.
Did you read his guide? He makes 3 Ravagers and arrives at terran base at 3.20-3.30. I have 3 mines already by then, and he does not know where the mines are. The 3 ravagers he insists are for pressure, and the moment you walk anywhere near the terran base, all 3 ravagers are dead, in fact the 3 ravagers die in the middle of the map to my 3 widow mines.
Ravagers can't counter what they can't see. Period.
On December 11 2015 07:07 terranfun wrote: Did you read his guide? He makes 3 Ravagers and arrives at terran base at 3.20-3.30. I have 3 mines already by then, and he does not know where the mines are. The 3 ravagers he insists are for pressure, and the moment you walk anywhere near the terran base, all 3 ravagers are dead, in fact the 3 ravagers die in the middle of the map to my 3 widow mines.
Ravagers can't counter what they can't see. Period.
But you can see the Mines even when burrowed... and Ravagers can stand near them but out of range, and use 2-3 Corrosive Biles to snipe them, if you unburrow Mines and try to run with them I can kill them with auto-attacks.
On December 11 2015 07:07 terranfun wrote: Did you read his guide? He makes 3 Ravagers and arrives at terran base at 3.20-3.30. I have 3 mines already by then, and he does not know where the mines are. The 3 ravagers he insists are for pressure, and the moment you walk anywhere near the terran base, all 3 ravagers are dead, in fact the 3 ravagers die in the middle of the map to my 3 widow mines.
Ravagers can't counter what they can't see. Period.
I dont think u should focus to analyze the BO this way. Normaly, no T making 3 mines at the begining of the game, what 3 mines for? And like he said, Rav can see the mine before they start fire...
Thanks for your build man, btw, do u have any replay or VOD for Helion Opening style? Because with this case, banshee will come out very shortly and our 3Rav can do nothing, maybe just 1 supplyDeport down. I tried this couple time with M and GM kr.
Thanks for your build man, btw, do u have any replay or VOD for Helion Opening style? Because with this case, banshee will come out very shortly and our 3Rav can do nothing, maybe just 1 supplyDeport down. I tried this couple time with M and GM kr.
The thing is with hellion styles is that they are shite for dealing with the ravagers, and their marine production is stunted if they are rushing banshees (ie. barracks makes reactor, then lifts off, then makes tech lab.) They will have almost no marines, so you should be able to really pressure their bunker with autos if they will have only like 1 marine in it, the bunker is near sure to go down. If the bunker goes down, you can break the wall completely, and their only response is too pull all scvs and try to kill with hellions, this is much more damage than expected. If they are rushing banshees, that will be their only win condition if they have taken a lot of scv loses, so you can rush 2 base lair and spire asap to deal with the chance of mass banshee.
Hope this helps, I usually have no problem with hellion openers as their defense is extremely weak as they are rushing tech.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/24BuTt7.png)
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