EPTLarge Maps and the Zerg Guessing Game - Page 2
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Creegz
Canada354 Posts
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Golgotha
Korea (South)8418 Posts
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Horse...falcon
United States1851 Posts
On April 04 2011 16:38 Virid wrote: There are plenty of players who don't scout until very late. Perhaps you're going about this the wrong way. Who? I'm pretty sure even Sjow scouts now. The problem for zerg is that you have to know what's going on or you're completely fucked. There are so many options for a terran or protoss to mess you up (banshees, blue flame hellions, 3 racks, 4 gate, dt rush, etc) that zergs have to know what their options are. Hell even a fast expo unscouted can end up in a sure loss. :edit: In ZvP I've been trying to get 4 queens up quickly in positions where I suspect a quick stargate may be a possibility. It's expensive early but can come in handy later when I want to transfuse a spine crawler vs 4gate. I don't play a lot of macro Protoss though so that clearly punishes my style. | ||
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RedDragon571
United States633 Posts
Against Terran, you've got to check if he got gas and constantly scout front. honestly vs terran you can go with speedling/baneling and be safe against everything but banshee. delay spire for a safe build. If you steal gas, you can usually hold of banshees blind with 3 queens. sometimes a hydra den will save you, because a spire takes too long. | ||
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JDub
United States976 Posts
On April 04 2011 16:41 TanX wrote: I'm sure this can be frustrating, but you can't really blame the loss on anything but yourself. Given those positions, you should be able to have an ovy scouting his natural to see if he is actually floating a CC over there. If you don't see a CC, you can't just sit back and relax and drone up. Until you confirm that he is expanding, you're not safe. One thing you could have done is produced more lings. If he IS expanding, you can deny the expo with your lings for a little bit, until he has enough marines to force you to back away. If you see 4 marines move down the ramp alone, and you have 12-16 lings, you can just surround and kill them. And if he is just hiding a 3 rax, now you have more lings which you can defend with.Played on Typhon Peaks against a Terran as Zerg. I spawned on the 11 O'clock position and he spawned on the 7 O'clock position - meaning that when I eventually scouted his base, I had to get my overlord all around the map in order to make sure that it arrived (as the ramp is placed along the edge that I would normally pass by - and the base layout means I would need a hero Ovie to have it survive long enough to scout anything placed in-base)... Meanwhile I kept Zerglings at his wall, constantly checking what he was doing. I could see a single rax from the front, of which he produced some marines. He moved out with about 4 marines and positioned them as if he was about to lift his CC down to expand, so I kept scouting and droned a little while retaining a few larvas for lings or roaches. Then I sacrificed 2 Zerglings to run past his marines and into his base, scouting 3 rax MM, and in that same instant he moved out... I don't know if you have tried that but it takes approximately 2 seconds for the Terran to arrive at your natural, horribly horribly destroying my defences with his MM force - I didn't really stand a chance - didn't even have enough time to get my first batch of roaches out, and at that time my spines were already gone. (I build x2 for defences when I early expo) Meanwhile, my Overlord wasn't even ready to move into his base to scout. (which would die to his marines anyway) That made me kind of frustrated. | ||
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ket-
97 Posts
As mentioned above already, zerg is just way too fragile to be able to survive an attack they don't know is coming - even if they DO know, they often times don't survive or barely. As a T/P i'm still always amazed at how my army actually kills stuff and at how much I can rely on it without having to try various micro-intensive techniques to get a slight amount of efficiency out of my units. There are things on which zerg is easier though of course, such as reinforcing during fights etc, but I believe the scouting part really is problematic as well as it is simply too vital. | ||
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wolfe
United States761 Posts
On April 04 2011 16:41 TanX wrote: Played on Typhon Peaks against a Terran as Zerg. I spawned on the 11 O'clock position and he spawned on the 7 O'clock position - meaning that when I eventually scouted his base, I had to get my overlord all around the map in order to make sure that it arrived (as the ramp is placed along the edge that I would normally pass by - and the base layout means I would need a hero Ovie to have it survive long enough to scout anything placed in-base)... Meanwhile I kept Zerglings at his wall, constantly checking what he was doing. I could see a single rax from the front, of which he produced some marines. He moved out with about 4 marines and positioned them as if he was about to lift his CC down to expand, so I kept scouting and droned a little while retaining a few larvas for lings or roaches. Then I sacrificed 2 Zerglings to run past his marines and into his base, scouting 3 rax MM, and in that same instant he moved out... I don't know if you have tried that but it takes approximately 2 seconds for the Terran to arrive at your natural, horribly horribly destroying my defences with his MM force - I didn't really stand a chance - didn't even have enough time to get my first batch of roaches out, and at that time my spines were already gone. (I build x2 for defences when I early expo) Meanwhile, my Overlord wasn't even ready to move into his base to scout. (which would die to his marines anyway) That made me kind of frustrated. I play terran primarily, but also off-race as zerg. A 3 rax opener is quite possibly all-in as when that first push is broken, terran is facing an extremely uphill battle. Secondly, what was mentioned above is that a safer build order is needed. I can 15 hatch vs terrans and hold off most early pressure. You might want to try going 14 gas 14 pool and 18 hatching. Even though you're hatching you want to drone only a bit saving larva for units. Speedlings can easily hold anything early on. Getting a few speedlings + 3 queens + 1 spine is relatively safe. Just drone smartly and get a reasonably timed baneling nest and lair. Drones and lings can stop 2 rax bunker pushes. (even after 14/15 hatching) Queens, lings, and 1 spine can stop blue flame hellion rushes. (assuming good control) Mass lings and a decently timed baneling nest can hold 3 rax pushes. Having a 3rd queen and decently timed lair can hold 2 port banshee. (assuming you respond properly as soon as you see it) Obviously, none of is this is easy to pull off, nor is it a "hard counter". If they outplay you, they outplayed you regardless of what you want to do. EDIT: roaches are typically a poor opening vs terran. (I said typically... not always.  )REGARDLESS OF ABOVE. Yes, zerg scout options are limited and may need tweaking. However, this is definitely more of a problem at higher levels. Unique and well-executed all-ins are less impact full and less common on the ladder where it also matters less. All players and all races lose once in a while to an all-in they could have or couldn't have scouted. | ||
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Jumbled
1543 Posts
On April 04 2011 16:51 RedDragon571 wrote: Against Terran, you've got to check if he got gas and constantly scout front. honestly vs terran you can go with speedling/baneling and be safe against everything but banshee. delay spire for a safe build. If you steal gas, you can usually hold of banshees blind with 3 queens. sometimes a hydra den will save you, because a spire takes too long. Would you be confident you can hold even against fast blue-flame hellions? That would be my main fear if I was doing a speedling/baneling opening in ZvT. | ||
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epoc
Finland1190 Posts
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wolfe
United States761 Posts
On April 04 2011 17:09 Jumbled wrote: Would you be confident you can hold even against fast blue-flame hellions? That would be my main fear if I was doing a speedling/baneling opening in ZvT. In short, yes. Pull your nat drones to the main. Block your ramp. 3 queens + 1 spine are awesome. Even quick evo chamber blocks are nice. Speedlings nom nom nom over-committed hellions. edit: 3rd queen -> awesome creep spread and pretty good early defense. | ||
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shadowboxer
United States224 Posts
The difference for terran and protoss is they have really strong early game units. As a Protoss if you 3 gate sentry expand, you are 100% safe from anything that is coming unless you pull a huk and run across the map with your sentries or have really bad forcefield micro. Even then, it's really hard to mess up the 3 gate expand. For Terran you do have to worry about the baneling bust and 4 gate. The difference is that if you over prepare for either of these builds and they don't come, you're actually not that far behind in economy because of how cost efficient your units become later in the game. Making marines early will never put you behind because they will be part of your core army later. Making zerglings will put you behind because as zerg you absolutely need those eggs to be drones instead. If Zerg had either stronger early game units with our current scouting methods we would be fine. If Zerg had stronger scouting methods with our current weak early game units, we would be fine. It's not so much that we're not fine as it is, if you guess right you are in GREAT shape for the mid game. The problem currently is that if a protoss/terran opponent doesn't want you to see what they're doing, you won't. TL;DR: Combination of weak early game units + poor early game scouting options are the issue for zergs currently. Fix one(not both) and Zerg stands a much better chance of getting into the mid game. Protoss/Terran don't have this issue because of strong early game units that keep them safe until their method of scouting is available. | ||
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aksfjh
United States4853 Posts
On further spawns, you sacrifice the ability to scout certain builds in exchange for the assurance that many of those pushes are rendered null by the very distance denying your scout. | ||
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Bill Murray
United States9292 Posts
You mentioned 4 warpgate. You realize that it hurts the Protoss economy, and that you have to sit on less drones than before to compensate for that. I somewhat disagree with you having said it needs to be around 21. It is map dependent in a sense. Your op implies it is not just Typhon, you are referring to all "larger" maps, correct? My advice on denying that is to attempt to rid him of planting forward pylons. What strategy do you usually employ? Different people have different styles. PM me about this if you are having trouble fending off 4 warpgate. You mentioned you were having trouble with Void Rays. How many queens do you normally build? I'm assuming you're talking about when P makes Phoenix with it? Are you talking about straight up VR? You should be able to keep your queens alive if they didn't proxy if it is on a large map. You mentioned Banshee openers in passing. Yet again Queens can fend this off. You can judge whether or not they are teching by marine counts/bunker at the ramp. If they bunker the ramp, and you don't see a 2nd OC, you can bank they are teching. I would be looking to make as little lings as I can, and make sure they are not just opening BF Hellions or expanding, at which point (when I believe it is banshee) I would be looking towards making a 3rd/4th queen and morphing an overseer. vs BitByBit style, you're saying you're worried about scouting on a large map... you should not be having trouble with this on a large map. You can easily scout a marine/scv all in with a zergling. I don't feel this is really justified. You have overlords to scout air paths, you don't have to send them into the base to die. To reiterate, you could go with a 3rd queen or drone scout, and you would eliminate the harassment style hurting you as bad. You still might be susceptible to 4gate/3rax/2rax+scv but these are things that you can scout with speedlings. I would work on larva management and timings. Ret writes timings down. Just notice where the scouting probe went, and if you kill the scout, be considering when the 4gate will hit. Most losses will come more from poor mechanics and macro as opposed to lack of scouting. | ||
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Betalump
United States109 Posts
The moment I saw my first scouting worker die to slow lings without micro I had a bad feeling about the game. I have gotten over this now, but this seemingly insignificant event has huge consequences on the rest of the game. Simply increasing the worker move speed just slightly to that of a slow zergling would be all it would take. Scouts would still be very "killable" with good micro, but scouting micro would actually be rewarded. If you could keep a scout alive in the opponents base just a tiny bit longer just a few "timings" would be "scoutable" if you had good scouting micro. Hiding tech would cost some time or good micro would be required to remove the scout in time. A second scout on the map against zerg would be possible as lings wouldn't automatically kill it anymore. Since this forum is not the place for requesting balance changes here are some possible solutions. Some are already mentioned. 1. Steal gas. If you are having problems against a variety of builds delaying the second gas of the opponent and seeing if they attack the gas is a simple way of "cutting" the number of possible strategies they can use against you. This plus scouting the front will give you a good idea of what's coming. 2. Incorporate a faster evo chamber into your build. This doesn't mean use it immediately for upgrades or automatically make spore's. Simply be aware of banshee/voidray/phoenix timings and incorporate it into your build if you haven't already determined that it isn't something else. At every level except the very top 75 minerals and a drone won't lose you the game, but it can keep you in many. 3. Escort your overlords into position. If you are having problems getting an overlord to a base use scouting paths and timings that, if needed, allow you to get lings there in time to "escort" it to safety. 4. Leave a single ling behind. Keeping at least 1 ling on the map after the opponent moves out. This gives you the ability to continue to scout even if you are "contained". Most of the time if you are using a solid build its not the first attack that you didn't scout that kills you, but the second. Sometimes you can even snipe an scv building an expansion or get a free run around in the opponents base or even some free workers. | ||
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Zerokaiser
Canada885 Posts
On April 04 2011 18:01 Betalump wrote: Everything boils down to the worker speed being slightly to slow. Simply increasing mining delay and everything else in the game remains the same except worker defense gets slightly better (which would be good for the game) and scouting becomes more effective. The moment I saw my first scouting worker die to slow lings without micro I had a bad feeling about the game. I have gotten over this now, but this seemingly insignificant event has huge consequences on the rest of the game. Simply increasing the worker move speed just slightly to that of a slow zergling would be all it would take. Scouts would still be very "killable" with good micro, but scouting micro would actually be rewarded. If you could keep a scout alive in the opponents base just a tiny bit longer just a few "timings" would be "scoutable" if you had good scouting micro. Hiding tech would cost some time or good micro would be required to remove the scout in time. A second scout on the map against zerg would be possible as lings wouldn't automatically kill it anymore. Since this forum is not the place for requesting balance changes here are some possible solutions. Some are already mentioned. 1. Steal gas. If you are having problems against a variety of builds delaying the second gas of the opponent and seeing if they attack the gas is a simple way of "cutting" the number of possible strategies they can use against you. This plus scouting the front will give you a good idea of what's coming. 2. Incorporate a faster evo chamber into your build. This doesn't mean use it immediately for upgrades or automatically make spore's. Simply be aware of banshee/voidray/phoenix timings and incorporate it into your build if you haven't already determined that it isn't something else. At every level except the very top 75 minerals and a drone won't lose you the game, but it can keep you in many. 3. Escort your overlords into position. If you are having problems getting an overlord to a base use scouting paths and timings that, if needed, allow you to get lings there in time to "escort" it to safety. 4. Leave a single ling behind. Keeping at least 1 ling on the map after the opponent moves out. This gives you the ability to continue to scout even if you are "contained". Most of the time if you are using a solid build its not the first attack that you didn't scout that kills you, but the second. Sometimes you can even snipe an scv building an expansion or get a free run around in the opponents base or even some free workers. My biggest nitpick with this post is the gas stealing. Gas stealing is something I do on a regular basis, but * large maps * make it so that most of the time, your drone won't be there in time to steal gas. | ||
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Betalump
United States109 Posts
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OPSavioR
Sweden1465 Posts
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Zerokaiser
Canada885 Posts
On April 04 2011 18:07 Betalump wrote: If they have a second gas that fast that tells you something. Again, it takes literally zero effort to just make a second gas and never use it. Many players will make their second gas when they see your drone just so you don't steal it, and them even using their second gas can still mean 4gate, void rays, DTs, anything. | ||
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Misanthrope
United States924 Posts
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Vei
United States2845 Posts
On April 04 2011 16:14 ZyM wrote: I feel the exact same way. This is true on Taldarim too, if you dont get to your opponent with your first overlord even a light pressure can kill you outright if you guess wrong. dude it is IMPOSSIBLE to overlord scout on TDA vs anyone who is smart enough to line their perim with buildings/marines during the scout denying phase of the early-game. | ||
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