EPTLevel: Master T, GM P
Call To Action: Balance Testing TvZ. - Page 48
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SirPinky
United States525 Posts
Level: Master T, GM P | ||
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convention
United States622 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:28 TheDwf wrote: How hilarious. Do you seriously think what you just wrote? Really, Terrans were mostly playing 1- or 2-base all-ins in TvZ pre-patch? I guess that's why Blizzard killed Snipe, right—to hinder 1-base Ghosts all-ins I assume? It really is hilarious how few people that comment on this thread have tried playing against zerg. A few posts up someone is complaining how terran can just go to his barracks and press MMMMMM and win. Clearly he has never played terran. And the guy you quoted (along with a few more over the previous pages) clearly has never tried to play against zerg, as they continue to think that T/P suck at macroing, that is why they try to do a 2-base timing. Those people have never had to try to fight an unhindered zerg's BL/infestor army, otherwise they would understand the idea behind doing a 2-base attack of some sort. | ||
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Sovern
United States312 Posts
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:36 convention wrote: It really is hilarious how few people that comment on this thread have tried playing against zerg. A few posts up someone is complaining how terran can just go to his barracks and press MMMMMM and win. Clearly he has never played terran. Yep, otherwise he would have known that the hotkey for Marine is A. (; | ||
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kranten
Netherlands236 Posts
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TerranosaurusWrecks
Canada187 Posts
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Vaftrudner
Sweden1185 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:37 Sovern wrote: All these macro builds as terran are terrible in my opinion. More terrans need to invest heavily into units and upgrades that are very cost efficient such as stim/cs and rely on a bunker below the natural and banshees to deny the third while building up a scary army. Not only does this delay the hell out of zergs third but it also extends the mid game and delays zergs T3 considerably giving the terran a huge advantage and with good micro a good enough terran can win any game from this position. Zerg gets stronger as the game goes on so whats the point in going double upgrades and doing this fast 3rd shenanigans? Zergs bound to win once they're on hive tech unless they fuck up and that's the truth. I think you have a lot of good points. Now, I'm not close to a pro, but I watch a lot of pro Starcraft, and watching Day9's last daily about TvZ highlighted a lot of concrete concepts that make Taeja so ridiculously good in the matchup. One of them is concentrating more on control and aggression than outgreeding the Z. He denies the second with 2 rax bunker pressure, then the third for as long as he can, and when he can't deny expansions, he denies creep spread which makes all other later expansions vulnerable. He drops the main just to distract to be able to kill creep. All his timings are inverted which exploits zerg really well. By constant pressure, he extends the mid-game and weakens the zerg in the late-game, all the while being defended by controlling the map. What people should ask themselves is not "how the hell do I beat 10 brood lords and 15 infestors", it's "how the hell did I let him get 10 brood lords and 15 infestors". They don't just magically appear. It costs a TON of gas, and no matter how many drones you build, you can't mine out of more than two geysers per expansion. By denying creep early, you're denying expansions later, which denies unkillable hive armies. My 2 cents. | ||
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convention
United States622 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:49 TerranosauresWrecks wrote: I think blizzard might need to own up to there mistakes last patch and maybe nerf the overlord speed a bit or something or maybe buff the raven mor significantly than a speed buff. As is it right now all inning a zerg is pretty tough, I think if they nerfed overlord speed just a tad it might leave a bit more room for all ins and make the zerg less greedy. Buffing the raven would make it so you can get this unit that can deny creep but also actually be good mid and late game. Buffing raven speed is nice, but I don't ever remember being in a game and wishing the raven moved a bit faster, I don't think it will make a difference. Creep spread is a nice general nerf but I think it's something that is going to need a lot of research to determine if it's actually balanced or not. I think the overlord buff can be "fixed" by mapmakers. We are still using maps which were built when zerg scouting was awful, so they were given places for the overlords to watch ramps without being attacked, or free airspace to hide behind the gas geysers, and good locations to keep an overlord safe before sacrificing the overlord. If maps took out those safe places, or took out some of them, then zerg will go back to the old scouting. That makes zerg a little bit more worried and forces units away from drones to be safer and to have a strong map presence. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:52 Vaftrudner wrote: I think you have a lot of good points. Now, I'm not close to a pro, but I watch a lot of pro Starcraft, and watching Day9's last daily about TvZ highlighted a lot of concrete concepts that make Taeja so ridiculously good in the matchup. One of them is concentrating more on control and aggression than outgreeding the Z. He denies the second with 2 rax bunker pressure, then the third for as long as he can, and when he can't deny expansions, he denies creep spread which makes all other later expansions vulnerable. He drops the main just to distract to be able to kill creep. All his timings are inverted which exploits zerg really well. By constant pressure, he extends the mid-game and weakens the zerg in the late-game, all the while being defended by controlling the map. What people should ask themselves is not "how the hell do I beat 10 brood lords and 15 infestors", it's "how the hell did I let him get 10 brood lords and 15 infestors". They don't just magically appear. It costs a TON of gas, and no matter how many drones you build, you can't mine out of more than two geysers per expansion. By denying creep early, you're denying expansions later, which denies unkillable hive armies. My 2 cents. While you have valid points, don't forget that you can't always expect to have an edge or outplay your opponent in midgame. Mathematically, some games will reach the lategame stage in which the Zerg player can build a decent count of his tier3 army, and the current problem is precisely that 1. Zerg players can reach this stage too fast, 2. even if you're more or less on equal footing economy-wise, you don't have cost-efficient armies to fight thoses compositions which results in the Terran player being crushed. | ||
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Vindicare605
United States16032 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:37 Sovern wrote: All these macro builds as terran are terrible in my opinion. More terrans need to invest heavily into units and upgrades that are very cost efficient such as stim/cs and rely on a bunker below the natural and banshees to deny the third while building up a scary army. Not only does this delay the hell out of zergs third but it also extends the mid game and delays zergs T3 considerably giving the terran a huge advantage and with good micro a good enough terran can win any game from this position. Zerg gets stronger as the game goes on so whats the point in going double upgrades and doing this fast 3rd shenanigans? Zergs bound to win once they're on hive tech unless they fuck up and that's the truth. There's a lot of potential in Terran's late game against Zerg and it's been demonstrated in the GSL already with games like Ryung vs DRG game 1 (if you haven't seen that game yet GO FUCKING WATCH IT THE VOD IS FREE.) The issue with Terran late game is primarily 2 fold. 1. The tech switch from a primarily barracks based army into a primarily starport based army is daunting. The way Terran macro works makes this tech switch far more difficult to pull off than anything Protoss or Zerg have to do with the current metagame (transition into mass Void Ray Carrier would be an accurate comparison.) For example: Every Protoss late game unit vs Terran with the exception of the Collosus and Observer all come from Warp Gates and all of them also share the same upgrades. So the only real tech switch a Protoss has to do vs Terran is to swap from Templar tech into Collosus tech or vice versa until he has the gas income to support both techs at once. Compare that to Raven/Viking/Battlecruiser vs Zerg. I've seen the tech transition done in a hurry when MKP dropped down 6 Starports at once (750 gas including the tech labs) and then as soon as they were done plopped tech labs on all of them and started research simultaneously Durable Materials, Seeker Missle, Corvid Reactor (a combined 450 gas investment) all the while starting up upgrades on his air units from two armories (200 gas). So without even factoring in the cost of the upgrades or the units and without factoring in the amount of time it takes to actually MAKE Vikings, Ravens and Battlecruisers, Terrans have to invest 1400 gas just to get the damn tech switch STARTED (assuming of course you make that many Starports, you could make fewer but then the transition would take a lot longer.) Keep in mind that the units themselves cost 200 gas, 300 gas and 75 gas respectively. 2. The unit composition itself is very fragile if mishandled. Even once this unit composition hits the field it still suffers from a lot of the same vulnerabilities as Infestor/Broodlord/Corruptor. It's slow moving, relies heavily on the caster unit supporting the big siege unit (Battlecruisers in this case) and if caught in a bad position can take heavy losses quickly and every unit lost is extremely expensive. BUT! If you can manage to get a maxed out army of Ravens Battlecruisers and Vikings and you control it correctly, it's a pretty insane force for Zerg to fight against. The Raven speed buff is a slight improvement to the Raven's usefulness in the midgame, it doesn't necessarily benefit it at all in this super late game unit composition I'm talking about. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:56 convention wrote: I think the overlord buff can be "fixed" by mapmakers. We are still using maps which were built when zerg scouting was awful, so they were given places for the overlords to watch ramps without being attacked, or free airspace to hide behind the gas geysers, and good locations to keep an overlord safe before sacrificing the overlord. If maps took out those safe places, or took out some of them, then zerg will go back to the old scouting. That makes zerg a little bit more worried and forces units away from drones to be safer and to have a strong map presence. 100% true, for instance the Cloud Kingdom Overlord spot is absolutely ridiculous. | ||
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Shiori
3815 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:13 Plansix wrote: And then the terran can go double e-bay and get those beefy upgrades because thats 8 larva that arn't going to be units. Then press MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM and get all the +1 marines. Is this really a discussion people need to be having? You are both masters level, time to make a custom game and settle this once and for all. The point is that losing Drones for cost against Hellions isn't worth it, because opening Hellions requires a Factory + Reactor, which implies certain things about the Terran's production, and, furthermore, costs them gas. A Zerg who remakes 8 Drones off 3 base is fine because they know the Terran just lost all their map control, will have smaller bio, and a later third. The idea that forcing Zerg to make units instead of Drones is damage is actually just completely false, because it costs the other races just as much (if not more) as the Zerg to actually put on pressure to begin with. Whether or not it forces the Zerg to do something doesn't matter, because the aggressor also had to sacrifice. The real problem is that if nobody pressures, Zerg is ahead. If the non-Zerg pressures and it doesn't work, the aggressor is behind. Do you not see why it's a problem when Blizzard keeps nerfing any pressure that they perceive is "too reliable"? There need to be pressures which work every time, because a situation with no pressure means Zerg gets super ahead. It's not even a matter of Zerg's lategame being way better than anyone else's. It's that they get there way earlier because they can play so much greedier without it being risky. I can't triple Nexus against Zerg no matter what they do. There's no way I'm going to get to MS/Archon/Colossus/Carrier/Void Ray with 3/3 upgrades before a Zerg gets their mega composition. That's the problem. The other races are required to slow Zerg down somehow, which is fine, but every time they find out a way that actually works, it gets nerfed because it's too reliable. Well, uh, how are we supposed to slow Zerg down if we have to rely on the element of surprise every game? | ||
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Aurrora
43 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:28 TheDwf wrote: How hilarious. Do you seriously think what you just wrote? Really, Terrans were mostly playing 1- or 2-base all-ins in TvZ pre-patch? I guess that's why Blizzard killed Snipe, right—to hinder 1-base Ghosts all-ins I assume? Ya I did write that. Then i decided to edit it out because that is not what the topic was about. But I do stand by what I said. It was 4 gate for a very very long time. Then it was FFE into 2 base all in for a very very long time. Yes, alot of players were trying to play macro, but probably 75 percent of players were trying to go for all ins. 2 rax plus scv, helion plus marine plus scv, 2 port banshee off of 1 base. There is various all ins that were very powerful and very abusive and if zerg tried to go herp derp three base they would just die. And in tvz, they were doing abusive builds that kept zerg on 2 base for a very very long time while being able to take 3 bases very easily. I still stand by what I said, terrans were using abusive builds that were really hindering zergs (hence why terrans have always done so well, they've had many abusive builds, 1 base, 2 base, and 3 base) and now that those builds dont work because of the patch, things are more balanced and terrans are finding it hard to win when used to being so far ahead with said builds. They just ride out the wave so to speak. Now they're actually having to make decisions. I still cant believe how when they only scout 1 queen at the front with no third with a couple helions, they still go for super greedy builds when it is indicating an all in coming. I've had to explain to many masters players how to react to what they see and how to play the match up to be good at it. When they take my advice, they become much better and stop qqing so much. Anywho, the patch looks fine. The patch to creep wont change much. | ||
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Shiori
3815 Posts
On August 11 2012 01:10 Aurrora wrote: Are you serious? Why don't you qq some more? It's not like we don't scout you. If I see reactor helion, I can't do my "macro build" in zvt because I have to prepare for helions. If i see a 1 rax expand, YOU'RE PLAYING FOR MACRO GAME. So I do my macro build. I send in an overlord, to see if you're going for really greedy, 3 oc play, and then I be more greedy. I don't think you understand that I am REACTING to you and what I see. The same for pvz. They can tell me theyre doing a FFE which every protoss does and theres no way for me to stop it. Theyre playing greedy so I have to take three bases. Then I play more or less greedy depending on what I scout/how many gasses I see them take. I don't just go herp derp and hit a bunch of buttons on my keyboard. Learn to play and stop qqing. Btw, zerg takes more clicks to macro, it's been said since the game came out. FFE is not greedy. What the hell? [/QUOTE] Trying to keep up with a protoss who goes for FFE, while on 2 base, isn't feasible. I won't have the larvae or the economy to do so. That is why zerg needs an earlier third base (also to be able to take one if the said protoss is going for stargate play). And my bad, maybe greedy wasn't the right word because toss can hold every all in while going FFE. Theyre going for macro game, why shouldn't zerg? If I scout the toss going 1 base, and the toss had pylon blocked my natural and I take my third, when i see there is no FFE, i cancel my third, wait til my lings comes out to kill the pylon and take gas. When I see them take their natural, then I take my third base. I don't see how zerg playing reactionary = greedy.[/QUOTE] The problem is that when you take a fast third, no pressure I can do off of FFE that isn't all in forces a cost-effective reaction. If I go +1 4gate Zealot, it's countered by standard Roach Warren timings. If I go Stargate (a HUGE gas investment) you can counter it with a couple of extra Queens and some Spores; none of these are deviations compared to Stargate. Meanwhile, 3 base Zerg can make it very difficult for Protoss to take a third base unless the Protoss gets a tonne of Sentries and Immortals. So yeah, Protoss has to do something or you get 80 Drones and 15 minute Brood Lords. All of our pressures are countered by standard play, and any which aren't have been nerfed. That's the problem. | ||
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Zarahtra
Iceland4053 Posts
On August 11 2012 02:52 Vaftrudner wrote: I think you have a lot of good points. Now, I'm not close to a pro, but I watch a lot of pro Starcraft, and watching Day9's last daily about TvZ highlighted a lot of concrete concepts that make Taeja so ridiculously good in the matchup. One of them is concentrating more on control and aggression than outgreeding the Z. He denies the second with 2 rax bunker pressure, then the third for as long as he can, and when he can't deny expansions, he denies creep spread which makes all other later expansions vulnerable. He drops the main just to distract to be able to kill creep. All his timings are inverted which exploits zerg really well. By constant pressure, he extends the mid-game and weakens the zerg in the late-game, all the while being defended by controlling the map. What people should ask themselves is not "how the hell do I beat 10 brood lords and 15 infestors", it's "how the hell did I let him get 10 brood lords and 15 infestors". They don't just magically appear. It costs a TON of gas, and no matter how many drones you build, you can't mine out of more than two geysers per expansion. By denying creep early, you're denying expansions later, which denies unkillable hive armies. My 2 cents. After watching D9 though, he kind of skipped the part where Taeja is just a lot better player than his opponents aswell as the fact that he ignored educated risks Taeja took*. Don't get me wrong, we should all strive to play like Taeja in many many ways(as I'd say he's currently the best player in the world), but Taeja is far from a great example of a player that goes hyper aggressive always. He just picks his opponents apart. Furthermore it's nothing new that terran move to the creep and kill it, or distract the zerg to do it(admittedly normally they don't loose 10ish rines doing it). Don't know, I was really dissappointed with that daily, although I'm a Taeja fan, D9 was acting like Taeja had some silver bullet there, when it was just really solid play, which everyone pretty much tries to play, but most lack the skill of to perform so well(and have the RNG on your side while playing superbly). * Such as he talks about how brilliant Taeja is moving out with rines, because he knows Shine doesn't have a gas. Taeja didn't know that one bit and D9 says something like "he couldn't have had it after all that dmg".... Sure he could've, he probably would've had to take drones out of gas after the dmg he received, but the speed still could've easily finished before the following poke, which would've resulted in Shine easily crushing that 8 rine poke, which would've been very painful for Taeja. | ||
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Aurrora
43 Posts
Trying to keep up with a protoss who goes for FFE, while on 2 base, isn't feasible. I won't have the larvae or the economy to do so. That is why zerg needs an earlier third base (also to be able to take one if the said protoss is going for stargate play). And my bad, maybe greedy wasn't the right word because toss can hold every all in while going FFE. Theyre going for macro game, why shouldn't zerg? If I scout the toss going 1 base, and the toss had pylon blocked my natural and I take my third, when i see there is no FFE, i cancel my third, wait til my lings comes out to kill the pylon and take gas. When I see them take their natural, then I take my third base. I don't see how zerg playing reactionary = greedy.[/QUOTE] The problem is that when you take a fast third, no pressure I can do off of FFE that isn't all in forces a cost-effective reaction. If I go +1 4gate Zealot, it's countered by standard Roach Warren timings. If I go Stargate (a HUGE gas investment) you can counter it with a couple of extra Queens and some Spores; none of these are deviations compared to Stargate. Meanwhile, 3 base Zerg can make it very difficult for Protoss to take a third base unless the Protoss gets a tonne of Sentries and Immortals. So yeah, Protoss has to do something or you get 80 Drones and 15 minute Brood Lords. All of our pressures are countered by standard play, and any which aren't have been nerfed. That's the problem. [/QUOTE] If I make it very difficult for you to take a third, I'm stuck on 60 drones with bad upgrades and bad tech. You'll be able to take the third if you cut my army in half once with forcefields (doing immortal build which is standard macro play) and now I'll have to back off and you can take a third. I can't deny your third and make drones and go tech and upgrades and more bases. | ||
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Aurrora
43 Posts
On August 11 2012 03:14 Zarahtra wrote: when it was just really solid play, which everyone pretty much tries to play, but most lack the skill of to perform so well(and have the RNG on your side while playing superbly). I love what you said. Standard play but just playing better. Most people take the qq route instead of working harder to become better. Although, I have to say, there isn't really a terran that people can look to that changes the meta. At least not right now, but Taeja shows that hardwork and solid play is enough to beat solid playing zergs. | ||
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Shiori
3815 Posts
On August 11 2012 03:18 Aurrora wrote: Trying to keep up with a protoss who goes for FFE, while on 2 base, isn't feasible. I won't have the larvae or the economy to do so. That is why zerg needs an earlier third base (also to be able to take one if the said protoss is going for stargate play). And my bad, maybe greedy wasn't the right word because toss can hold every all in while going FFE. Theyre going for macro game, why shouldn't zerg? If I scout the toss going 1 base, and the toss had pylon blocked my natural and I take my third, when i see there is no FFE, i cancel my third, wait til my lings comes out to kill the pylon and take gas. When I see them take their natural, then I take my third base. I don't see how zerg playing reactionary = greedy. The problem is that when you take a fast third, no pressure I can do off of FFE that isn't all in forces a cost-effective reaction. If I go +1 4gate Zealot, it's countered by standard Roach Warren timings. If I go Stargate (a HUGE gas investment) you can counter it with a couple of extra Queens and some Spores; none of these are deviations compared to Stargate. Meanwhile, 3 base Zerg can make it very difficult for Protoss to take a third base unless the Protoss gets a tonne of Sentries and Immortals. So yeah, Protoss has to do something or you get 80 Drones and 15 minute Brood Lords. All of our pressures are countered by standard play, and any which aren't have been nerfed. That's the problem. [/QUOTE] If I make it very difficult for you to take a third, I'm stuck on 60 drones with bad upgrades and bad tech. You'll be able to take the third if you cut my army in half once with forcefields (doing immortal build which is standard macro play) and now I'll have to back off and you can take a third. I can't deny your third and make drones and go tech and upgrades and more bases. [/QUOTE] Yes, but the point is that every Protoss build basically needs to be some variant of an Immortal/Sentry expand because that's the only way to take a third base. This means that you actually know what I'm going to do until 12 minutes without ever needing to check. | ||
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Zarahtra
Iceland4053 Posts
On August 11 2012 03:22 Aurrora wrote: I love what you said. Standard play but just playing better. Most people take the qq route instead of working harder to become better. Although, I have to say, there isn't really a terran that people can look to that changes the meta. At least not right now, but Taeja shows that hardwork and solid play is enough to beat solid playing zergs. You read to much into my words there, personally I don't really find games where one player is a lot better than the other and wins indicates balance. Sure everyone can improve, but to win TvZ, having to be a lot better than your opponent isn't really ideal. I feel the only real reason korean terrans are still winning equally skilled zergs is that they are doing really weird shit, awkward timings and risky/gimmicky play, while the zerg just goes "no idea what the T is doing, 3 base is safe". And at last, Terran has a ton of players to look up to, MKP and MMA would be my first picks, then Polt and MVP. Then there are a lot of very good terrans we can look to too. Last patch didn't change the fact there are a ton of gosu korean Ts. | ||
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Vaftrudner
Sweden1185 Posts
On August 11 2012 03:14 Zarahtra wrote: After watching D9 though, he kind of skipped the part where Taeja is just a lot better player than his opponents aswell as the fact that he ignored educated risks Taeja took*. Don't get me wrong, we should all strive to play like Taeja in many many ways(as I'd say he's currently the best player in the world), but Taeja is far from a great example of a player that goes hyper aggressive always. He just picks his opponents apart. Furthermore it's nothing new that terran move to the creep and kill it, or distract the zerg to do it(admittedly normally they don't loose 10ish rines doing it). Don't know, I was really dissappointed with that daily, although I'm a Taeja fan, D9 was acting like Taeja had some silver bullet there, when it was just really solid play, which everyone pretty much tries to play, but most lack the skill of to perform so well(and have the RNG on your side while playing superbly). * Such as he talks about how brilliant Taeja is moving out with rines, because he knows Shine doesn't have a gas. Taeja didn't know that one bit and D9 says something like "he couldn't have had it after all that dmg".... Sure he could've, he probably would've had to take drones out of gas after the dmg he received, but the speed still could've easily finished before the following poke, which would've resulted in Shine easily crushing that 8 rine poke, which would've been very painful for Taeja. Sure, he glosses over the fact that Taeja is just insanely good, but I still think there are details we can learn from without being as good as he is. I do believe that it's worth studying MC and Stephano for better P/Z play, even if we can't play at their level. I didn't see the daily as a silver bullet, just as an example of good play, concentrating on control instead of greed, and one worth thinking about. I responded specifically to a player criticising greed, agreeing with him, with this as an example. I don't mean that it's a solution to TvZ. There's no such thing. As far as risks go, sure, but Day9 does go at length explaining it. At the start of the bunker rush, he did scout and saw no gas. The push stopped at 5:45 and he retreated at around 6 minutes. Like Day9 said, it takes 3 minutes from no geyser to finished zergling speed. At 7:45 when he pushed out, the only way he could have ling speed is if he took a geyser DURING the initial fight, which makes no sense at all since he lost a ton of drones. Also, if he took gas directly after the initial engagement, there could only be one reason, and that is a roach/bling all-in, which Taeja is quite well prepared for (his barracks at his natural). If not, taking gas would have been stupid. He needed drones badly. I'd say that it was a smart decision, not a risky one, to push out with 8 marines there. Anything that could have killed them would also kill the zerg economy. | ||
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