EPTEarly this season I was struggling with the PvZ matchup and one day Probe told me about a cool build idea he was working on opening with the new faster chargelots and voidrays. I tried it out and despite having no tight build I won 4/5 of my first games using it.
I immediately made a video giving an intro to the style as a "hey this is cool, try this guys!" -
BUT SINCE THEN I've actually refined it to the point where I win most of my games using this style (rank 150-100 GM NA).
There's a lot of changes since the video. I might do another video and add that in here at some point too. Since that first VoD I've used the style in every single PvZ and have refined it a lot
For now the main points of the build are:
- Opening
- Standard gate-gas-nexus-core-gas opening
- Adept + Warpgate Research
- Chrono Gateway - leave it here until warpgate is finished
- Twilight with next 100 gas
- Nonstop zealot production (3x Zealots) as soon as the adept finishes
- @100% Twilight - start charge
- After you start charge, add 2 more gateways (~3:30)
- Adjust chrono onto gateway + twilight
- 1st adept starts shading back to 3rd base around 3:20 (ling speed kicks in at 3:30)
- Zealot + adept wedge in minerals at 3rd, other zealot holds the natural wall
- Probe builds /46 pylon at the 3rd base + another pylon in the main base
- Nexus + MSC (Nexus should be down no later than 4:15, and can be down by 4:05 if you're execution is tight
- Warp in 3 zealots (warpgate should time out to finish with all 3 gateways and your 3rd zealot popping out - all should be within 15s if you execute tight)
- Zealots go to pressure (and potentially commit)
From there
- Natural Gases go down as your natural hits 16+ probes
- Double SG in the main base, bonus pts if it's somewhat hidden, but often I don't care if overlord sees it. This is a solid build.
- Add extra pylons at 3rd and 4xgates when you can spare the minerals.
- Double oracle production - usually up to 4 - but depends on the situation
- If you see lots of roaches early - add a single VR for safety
- Zealots are fast now, so remember that committing on creep with no information can be dangerous - usually it's best to clear up towers, walk around the edge of creep to threaten and dart in and out - only committing if you see too many drones on the 3rd etc.
- You can also outrun roach-ling unless they have a RIDICULOUSly sized army. You run away, a-move into lings as they surround, run further, rinse and repeat. Your charge will keep cooling down allowing you to 2-shot lings and only a huge army of lings can surround you. Even if your first lots get surrounded, just keep warping in and you will have enough to crush any number of lings soon enough - especially with oracle support. Even +1 melee lings are not a problem, they still get 2-shotted.
- Keep warping in zealots for at least 2-3 cycles early on - they're very cheap and force a lot of units out for zerg - if they don't build enough units you can crush them
How to finish?
- Attack a lot - as you get better with this build you'll learn to identify when you can just keep warping in chargelots and go
- My common finishing move is dumping all my gas into 6-10 archons and hitting a huge attack whilst hitting the econ with a zealot counter or two
- VS hydra-bane I send the zealots to hide and counterattack when he moves out - I add storm asap and rely on it for clearing armies
- Some games you eventually have to go carriers - but usually you can finish it with chargelot/oracle, or chargelot/archon.
Notes
- The Oracles purpose is to dive into a base once you have all 4 or just with the first 2 if you see no spores/think you can surprise them. Focus down a lot of drones, hopefully force a big response into anti-air whilst you're actually just going back to focus on your ground army.
- You can go for a group of 4 Voidrays rather than oracles and try to sneak around the map with the "douche-squad" sniping hatcheries and recalling
- You can go mass phoenix if you prefer - I haven't experimented with this as much but it seems pretty damned good
- It's important to add the extra 4 gateways, and another 4-6 gates (total of 11-13 gates), at least begin producing the extra ones the moment your 3rd hits saturation. Zealots are cheap and you need a lot of them.
- You can tech for storm, or simply keep attacking with chargelot + archon
- Since chargelots are hard-hitting units that are very fast you want to multi-prong wherever possible and avoid fighting a single-angle engagement vs a ball of roach hydra that can stutter step on creep, or a big group of banes that negates your zealots ability to engage. Basically you play quite a bit like a Zerg and are the one hitting all over the place
- A fast robo + prism can help facilitate mass counter-attacks
- Forge timing is very flexible for me - I tend to go very late upgrades as this is a very tempo-focused style, but I always eventually add a forge or two after going up to 11-13 gateways.
- You could tech to carriers a lot faster and focus on mass air off this opening - that's not my flavour though. I usually only go there if the game drags on long enough. It's a smooth transition since you already have 2SG up.
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NEW and NEWISH REPLAYS: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0suoovMS9qxSzhMNUllUU52ODg
Follow the genius Probe on Twitter/Twitch:
https://twitter.com/SC2Probe
https://www.twitch.tv/rinehart_sc2 http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Probe_(player)
More updates will be forthcoming. Post any questions below and I'll edit any clarifications into the build + respond in the comments
