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Long time lurker, first time poster. (I miss my little lurkers) =(
I've battled my way from a lowly Bronze Zerg to upper Platinum, and can't seem to break into Diamond. I've slowly gotten better, but I have finally hit a large road block with playing against Diamond Protoss.
Even with all the talk of the imbalance of the ZvT match-up, I struggle immensely to early 2-gate pressure. This denies my expo, and as he transitions to 4 gate, he clearly out produces me until I crack.
I'm at a loss with what to do. I've tried spines/speedlings to defend the first push. I've gone roaches. But no matter what the Protoss player is always way ahead of me in army count and economy.
I've attached 3 recent replays of this typical aggression.
Thanks in advance for any and all help.
Oh, and feel free to rip me a new one. We don't get better without some good criticism.
-Angelus
PS: please forgive my marginal BM and "whining" in some of these replays. These were a bunch of loses in a row and it quickly wore on my patience.
For the SWARM!
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-146632.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-146633.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-146634.jpg)
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I still have a crazy amount of trouble with this at mid-diamond sadly ._.
What I do is quickly expand and then mass lings and immediately place down spine crawlers. The natural expansion may take a few zealot hits but it should be fine in the long-run. Place down a ton of spinecrawlers early so that you aren't scrambling when his attack hits. After this, just power drones and tech to whatever.
Might be harder on closer maps, though.
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2 gate mass zealots right-
............ 10gas ( dont put worker in gas yet ) 13-14pool ( put worker to gas right away, once pool finished you should have 100 gas to upgrade for speed lings).......16 queen.... get 2-4lings for scout right away. If toss is committing to pressure you with his 2-6 zealots, make plenty of lings (need good micro to pick up his zealot don't just auto attack). After you have map control again with plenty of lings, keep making drones again. Remember to tech lair at 23/26 or so when you have another 100 gas. After getting gas for lair tech, you can remove the drones from gas for extra lings production to defend against 2-4gates if you want.
................get a nydus worm, click the movement point of nydus worm to the mineral line. Press d to unload all lings and kill his workers. Now you should have way better economy than toss. Making hydras with lings as tank. Remember hydra dps is insane.
http://www.mediafire.com/?644efiocmxn7ipc
http://www.mediafire.com/?794cjltxdiz067e
2 replay of how i use nudys worm
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I hope you enjoy my analysis but i think you should have been also able to do that on your level.
You should pratice against toss very hard AI, i doubt you will win.
First game: you saw the 2 gates pretty clearly, no gas also. You should thrown spine right away. I know what you probably thought...(i think) "maybe he won't get me in time". There's no maybes.
I think your timing is off also, your BO is wrong. Getting supply blocked @ 18? At least master a stable BO.
Second game: You took out your drones to kill the probes. You let your drone patrol and didnt look for the gas, anyways... you did see the 2 gates, didn't throw a spine asap. Didn't take drones out of gas.
You took 1 drone to scout and other to try to kill the probe(again), stupid mistake. You didn't get metabolic boost asap(maybe a little later if you had a spine or two). You positioned bad the spines, position one in the mineral line. Once you get 100 gas you should have taken your drones off gas to defend that push, kmon... you saw it coming.
You still let the drones on gas after you started the roach warren and had like 180+ gas(enoght for almost 10 roaches which would take you ~2 larva injections).
WAY too much mistakes sir. I know how hard it's to play zerg and what you are suffering, but you gotta fix that. You are not playing terran or toss, you have to perfect at least your opening! It's not that hard... you can use only one almost all games.
You should have left the game by the 5min mark after that, your game sense is bad.
Third game: same shit, you saw the 3rd gate going down and that he was going stalkers. REALLY BAD MACRO, you had 1983193813 gas. You had 15 drones while he had 28 probes HOLY SHIT. Before that you tried to push with like 4 roaches and some lings, were you nuts? Toss is always making units and you should take that in account. Try to always get your expansion up @ around 22, you were playing 1 base with really bad resources manegement, way too much extra gas...
As a zerg, seriously... never attack like that unless you are going some 5RR build. You just react and expand -- that's a rule.
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personally people who usually mass lings fall prey to mass zealots. the zealots really rip through those zerglings very quickly and with proper positioning and micro they arent gonna let u surround and kill their zealots 1by1 keeping them bunched or in a line . but then again im in mid level diamond playing at 1.1k+ so maybe im just playing against weaker zerg players. anyway i believe roaches would be the answer to those zealots. those roaches really do very well against the zealots.
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lings are better than zealots if you can mass them. It's very easy for slings to surround zealots. You can't make roaches fast enough against 2 gate zealots.
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Thanks TL for your candor.
As everyone can see, my game still has a lot of holes. It also didn't help that most of those games I went in pretty frazzled.
Anyways, my take away from the replies is:
Try 5RR to fend off initial zealot push.
Overlord at 15, not 16 or *gasp* 18
Once I have enough gas, pull the drones and put on minerals
Try 2 crawlers, 1 in the mineral line right when I see the 2 gate
Thanks again!
I'll report back after I implement all the advice.
-Angelus
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On September 06 2010 13:40 AngelusH wrote:
Thanks TL for your candor.
As everyone can see, my game still has a lot of holes. It also didn't help that most of those games I went in pretty frazzled.
Anyways, my take away from the replies is:
Try 5RR to fend off initial zealot push.
Overlord at 15, not 16 or *gasp* 18
Once I have enough gas, pull the drones and put on minerals
Try 2 crawlers, 1 in the mineral line right when I see the 2 gate
Thanks again!
I'll report back after I implement all the advice.
-Angelus
Gogo! I think once you fix that you are going to be in good shape! (diamond-like).
Also, 5rr isn't really necessary. 55rr would be a easy win against a 2 gate or the way your opponents played those games.
If you want to try 5rr i recomend you to get your timing really good with it because if u mess up ur probably going to be in a disadvantage.
for the swarm 
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On September 06 2010 13:32 whomybuddy wrote:
lings are better than zealots if you can mass them. It's very easy for slings to surround zealots. You can't make roaches fast enough against 2 gate zealots.
You very well can get roaches fast enough against a 2gate. I would recommend http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/3830055/ day9 daily 149 where he is showing WhiteRa 2gating. Watch what the zerg players do to defend once they see the 2gate. Of course, the zerg players lose in the end because the daily is about WhiteRa. . . but you can definitely glean some zerg information.
I prefer getting 3-4 roaches to counter the zealots then quickly expand. A usual 2gate will have him with no gas early on, so you'll have the superior force to hold your expansion for a bit. However, you're going to need to poke into his base to find out what he is transitioning to in order to react appropriately.
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zerg players: You seem to have this pretty under control...
I no longer rely on 2 gate or 4 warp gate pressure to do any significant damage to zergs (unless its a backdoor map)
I don't think its very hard for good zergs to stop either of these builds that's why I don't do them much anymore. (FFE is much better imo)
so do you zerg players think the zealot build time nerf proposed in 1.1 is actually needed?
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On September 06 2010 14:31 zealotz55 wrote:
zerg players: You seem to have this pretty under control...
I no longer rely on 2 gate or 4 warp gate pressure to do any significant damage to zergs (unless its a backdoor map)
I don't think its very hard for good zergs to stop either of these builds that's why I don't do them much anymore. (FFE is much better imo)
so do you zerg players think the zealot build time nerf proposed in 1.1 is actually needed?
well i still see top players flat out die or heavily hurt to 4gates all the time.
and it still happens alot to me since there is no safe way to play against it(and i also win the majority of my pvz games with 4gates). but i kinda accepted that earlygame zvp is just totally random.
that said i dont think the zeal gate is super necessary. atleast not if we had better maps. 2gate into 4gate is just sick strong on steppes or any close spawns.
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I just laddered two games that were exactly this. I easily defended the two gate pressure HANDILY with 2 zerglings loss from both games. Then i get absolutly destroyed by 4 gate. on scrapstation the shortcut through the rocks is so strong...
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wow had no idea it was so strong, maybe ill add 4 gating to one of my standards again for zvp (until the zealot nerf anyways)
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The problem isn't the initial push. With enough spines, zerglings, or roaches, the first 3-4 zealots are dealt with handily. The problem is when for protoss, the 4 gates pop into warp gates, and I'm still stuck on one base. If that happens, it's as good as GG.
Because the 4-gate so handily spends your money, and that your macro mechanic doesn't have an inverse relationship of workers to army, this favors Protoss. I know it's BEATABLE but the shear amount of work is ridiculous on the Zerg's part especially when the Protoss player only needs about 40APM to use this opener effectively.
This is always the reason why I think you find a lot of sloppy mechanics in low Protoss and Terran Diamond players, but the Zergs up there are pretty mechanically sound.
BTW, I finally popped into Diamond!
For the SWARM
-Angelus
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.............1 base zerg vs 1 base toss isn't GG. I mean you gain the same amount of mineral and gas. You only lose because you have bad macro and slow tech or not enough army. You can have an extra hatchery nearby your main for extra lava to produce more lings. Just try to tech to hydra fast and you'll be fine expanding later.
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Zerg 800diamond (so a scrub :D)
Did not watch the replays.
I had alot of trouble with the exact same build. It is kind of difficult. But just get a P practice partner and you will solve it.
What I do is just survive with lings/queens for the 2gate, then as soon as I feel comfortable/safe I set up my nat (often before the zealots are dead, as long as they are not in a pos to annoy).
Then I tech for roach warren + lair, and get alot of roaches (along with my speedlings), and 3 spine crawlers. Try to tech towards roach speed when you feel you got the resources for it.
Keep a healthy mix of roach/ling it is suck a powerful combo against all t1/1.5 from P, Then as soon as you push back his 4gate and you got roach speed, just mass up another round of roaches and kill his expansion (it should be on the way/finished by then).
Then poke up with lings at ramp, not to much cause of FF. If he is weak, go for the kill. if not expand, and get burrow + burrow move for roaches, to counter his colossus/HT (colossus by means of burrowing under them, and HT by negating the storm damage with burrow health regen).
Only thing you must watch out for is void rays, remember early to get an extra queen, so that you got 3 total, to handle a fast void ray. He shouldnt be abel to amass more then 1 void ray without you scouting it. In which case you make more queens and throw down a hydra den.
Remember upgrades, and macro and it should be fine. Keep teching towards t3.
Hope this helps.
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On September 06 2010 16:25 AngelusH wrote:
The problem isn't the initial push. With enough spines, zerglings, or roaches, the first 3-4 zealots are dealt with handily. The problem is when for protoss, the 4 gates pop into warp gates, and I'm still stuck on one base. If that happens, it's as good as GG.
Because the 4-gate so handily spends your money, and that your macro mechanic doesn't have an inverse relationship of workers to army, this favors Protoss. I know it's BEATABLE but the shear amount of work is ridiculous on the Zerg's part especially when the Protoss player only needs about 40APM to use this opener effectively.
This is always the reason why I think you find a lot of sloppy mechanics in low Protoss and Terran Diamond players, but the Zergs up there are pretty mechanically sound.
BTW, I finally popped into Diamond!
For the SWARM
-Angelus
The whole point of the first 3-4 zealots isnt to kill you outright (but would be good if it happens). It is to either punish you for that fast expansion, or to STOP you from getting it.
1base vs 1base isnt bad, but you need exponentially more ressources to stop the next wave, especially if opponent waits and throws 1-2 collossi in there. Now tell me how you plan on getting spire + hydra den + any decent unit composition out of that one base. Sure, some really nice combat tactics can get you the win, but not always.
Then again, people keep recommending roaches vs collossi. Personally i cant make it work at all 
GZ on Diamond!
On September 06 2010 13:27 ForDarkness wrote:
personally people who usually mass lings fall prey to mass zealots. the zealots really rip through those zerglings very quickly and with proper positioning and micro they arent gonna let u surround and kill their zealots 1by1 keeping them bunched or in a line . but then again im in mid level diamond playing at 1.1k+ so maybe im just playing against weaker zerg players. anyway i believe roaches would be the answer to those zealots. those roaches really do very well against the zealots.
Roaches wont make it in time on most maps. or you have to sacrifice something to get them. Lings are there to kill once the zealots start whacking on that queen or spine crawler. Or thats the theory
PS Im on a large losing streak so maybe dont take me too seriously :D. Ruined my record of 60/31 to like 82/72 now
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4 gate is quite easily scoutable. Check if there is anything spinning at his Cybernics. If he is 4 gating, you should have no hurry to lair. I had some troubles against warp gate pushes to have no trouble at all. Just make third hatchery at your main and mass up millions speedlings with mix of slow roaches. This will beat 4 warp gate with half-assed timings and control.
Very late tech can obviously hurt, but this is tailored to beat 4 warpgate and at least you can pump queens from 3 hatch and spam spores. Once Stabilized 3 hatcheries can pump so many drones that you can decide which point you wanna kill protoss who is desperately trying to take his natural or you can just expand more.
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THIS is one of my games where I defend a 2gate zealot pressure into 4 gate push. We're both low diamond/high plat, so don't expect too much, but maybe it helps.
Basically I have come to understand that there is no reason not to take a fast expo vs protoss (except vs proxy 2gate of course). Your natural hatch will lose 50% of it's health, but if you stay calm and attack once you have enough lings you'll easily defend it.
There's no need to make spine crawlers vs a late (like 13+15 food) 2 gates, but you'll need the spines to ward away the later warpgate push. 3 should be enough, maybe 4 on maps with no chokes.
If I hadn't scouted his 2 gate (i.e. he goes a plain 4 gate), I would have made no more lings but pure drones up to about 38 food. Then make nothing but speedlings. This way you can have your crawles deal damage while your lings soak up damage until your hydras arrive.
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EPT
