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Obviously lots of the top zerg players utilize hatchery first builds. However, is there any real advantage to this or is it just a preference or old broodwar mentality?
Watching Destiny's stream last night (and confirming the results in my own games) we saw that doing a pool before hatchery build maintains the same economy (if not slightly better) than putting down a 14 or 15 hatchery first. The pool first can hang (or surpass) the economy of the hatchery first build up to 30 supply, and even further up to 50 supply.
With constant larvae injections and only creating mineral drones (ignoring other tech buildings or gas extraction), both builds get to the 50 supply mark just after 6 minutes.
So without having an economic advantage in going hatch first, why are top zergs doing this and giving up the safety net of the early pool (which would make dealing with early cheese/harass easier)?
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Because it takes a hatchery a while to build. If you can do so safely, you have secured an expansion and creeps start spreading earlier too, which is helpful for your units.
I remember there being some talk about 14 pool 15 hatch vs 14 hatch because the earlier queen may give you more larva than an earlier hatch, but I think the fact that you can begin building two queens at just about the same time with a 14 hatch makes it that much better while you get a 3rd queen and tech to lair.
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in a 2 queen race, the pool first build still produces more larvae and economy than getting 2 queens at the same time with a hatch first
by time you're considering a third queen or lair tech, both builds would be pretty much even so there's not a difference
it seems to me the hatch first really only lets you get creep flowing at your natural (since you wont be saturated at your main at this point, you're not getting a big econ advantage transferring drones on the early hatch)
so is it simply earlier creep at natural vs. being able to get zerglings/queen out faster to react to proxy bunkers or pylons?
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On October 28 2010 23:54 Bitters wrote:
Obviously lots of the top zerg players utilize hatchery first builds. However, is there any real advantage to this or is it just a preference or old broodwar mentality?
Watching Destiny's stream last night (and confirming the results in my own games) we saw that doing a pool before hatchery build maintains the same economy (if not slightly better) than putting down a 14 or 15 hatchery first. The pool first can hang (or surpass) the economy of the hatchery first build up to 30 supply, and even further up to 50 supply.
With constant larvae injections and only creating mineral drones (ignoring other tech buildings or gas extraction), both builds get to the 50 supply mark just after 6 minutes.
So without having an economic advantage in going hatch first, why are top zergs doing this and giving up the safety net of the early pool (which would make dealing with early cheese/harass easier)?
You need to be more specific. Which matchup are you talking about? Regarding TvZ, the advantage of going hatch first is obvious; it lets you set up your expansion with creep, a sunken, and the like. As to ZvZ, the question is interesting.
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I'm considering all races.. since I'm used to hatch first, I was really curious about the pool first seemingly matching or surpassing the economy of my build
In ZvP, I imagine a pool first build lets you deal with canon rush better than hatch first (or some possible two gate push) since you can get lings out faster
Similarly in ZvT, the pool first allows access to lings to stop any proxy bunker play. If you want to throw down a spine to prevent hellions at the natural... well is going something like 14p/15q/15hatch going to be too slow of timing to stop that?
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Hatchery first is optimal for a few reasons
1 - Creep spread: It allows your zerglings and roaches to defend against hellions and early harass
2 - Larva: One of the resources that you are starved for in the beginning of the game is larva
3 - Early Static Defense: Since you need creep to build on the earlier you get your hatch up the earlier you can put down a spine crawler.
4 - Wall ins: Since everyone walls in vs zerg early pressure is very risky because it puts pressure on you to do dmg which is very hard to do against people with wall ins. Since early pressure is so risky many people decide to go for an economic opening and hatch first is the way as stated above.
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On October 29 2010 00:37 bevey wrote:
Hatchery first is optimal for a few reasons
1 - Creep spread: It allows your zerglings and roaches to defend against hellions and early harass
2 - Larva: One of the resources that you are starved for in the beginning of the game is larva
3 - Early Static Defense: Since you need creep to build on the earlier you get your hatch up the earlier you can put down a spine crawler.
4 - Wall ins: Since everyone walls in vs zerg early pressure is very risky because it puts pressure on you to do dmg which is very hard to do against people with wall ins. Since early pressure is so risky many people decide to go for an economic opening and hatch first is the way as stated above.
1- could see faster creep at nat being beneficial
2- you don't get more larvae doing hatch before pool, that's why i made this thread
3- similar to 1, but you can get access to lings/queen faster for defense as well
4- my first post highlights that there is no economic benefit of hatch first
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Hatch first makes it so that you have creep at your natural to lay down spine crawlers. The two queens can block the ramp while your spine crawlers protect the drones/hatchery.
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With the exception of Bunkers/pylon+Cannon at ramp hatch first, lets you secure the expansion safer than going for the earlier pool. (For example if you scout a chronoed 10 gate you can still save your expansion with a 14 hatch, while a 14 pool would possibly result in having to delay the hatchery or risk getting it cancelled before it finishes)
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so the consensus seems to be the early creep for faster spines?
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The timings are amazingly more smooth with hatch first, and getting out those two queens in order to fend off any harassment is crucial. If you want to go an econ build there's no question on going hatch first. Quite simply you're going to have a harder time vs early aggression if you want to drone whore with a pool first. So if you pool first usually you end up making lings earlier to contain him early on, etc. The queen timings are also a lot more awkward.
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For me hatch first is good because the hatch starts producing larva right away, while you need the queen and injection time to get an economical refund on 14 pool. Larva can be used for lings in case you need them and 2 fast queens help a lot in defence. In fact I dont know if 14 pool is safer. And if you like fast queen so much why dont you play 11 pool instead? You would be surprised how economical it is if you go drone heavy.
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simply because you can
zvp and zvt at least
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34 Posts
wtf apparently almost everyone in this thread didn't even read the OT. He said several times that you do NOt get more larva or economy from hatch first -.-'
so why is everyone mentioning larva and economy in favor of the hatch first build.
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how can you not get more larva from a second hatch?
the difference is minimal, but you still get the larva earlier which means you can spend your minerals earlier and get more units out earlier.
also, if you wait before hatch there's a greater chance the opposing player can pressure and make it far more difficult to claim.
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There's something to consider about early game larva -- it's not always as limiting as a lot of people make it out to be. Often, I find that if I hatch first and use all my energy on inject, I can't use all my larvae right away anyway -- I'm waiting on minerals.
It's not easy to measure this, but it seems that hatch first allows you to still have extra larvae early but use your queen's starting energy to get aggressive creep spread instead of injecting.
I'd say that the biggest benefit to hatch first is creep spread at almost no economical detriment (but the flip-side is that the build is mildly more vulnerable to committed pressure early on).
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On October 29 2010 01:32 Brusko651 wrote:
wtf apparently almost everyone in this thread didn't even read the OT. He said several times that you do NOt get more larva or economy from hatch first -.-'
so why is everyone mentioning larva and economy in favor of the hatch first build.
Because if you read my post you'd see that trying to drone whore off a pool first build is much more dangerous than drone whore off a hatch first build. So if you want to play econ, if you can pull off the hatch first, it's going to set you better up for econ. If you go pool first but want to play econ, it's much riskier.
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Perhaps you do not get more larvae, but you get more at one moment. When your two queens pop and if you choose to inject rather than spread immediately, that is 8 larvae at one moment, while the maximum you could have on one hatchery is 7 and thats if you pool your larvae for some reason. Having 8 larvae at one moment can be beneficial if you are under pressure as opposed to having 4 at one moment and then 1 at a time. All your units come out at once.
You also have an easier time choosing when to drone and when to make an army I find. If I have 2 bases worth of larvae in early game and am under pressure, I can still make some drones. If I have one base worth of larvae and only 1 queen thats not only less defense, but less drones.
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hoove, the faster injection from the 13 or 14 pool queen makes up for not taking the slightly faster hatch... you guys can test this yourself, but as i said, you don't get more drones or larvae with hatch first. they are very very close, with the pool first sometimes edging it out SLIGHTLY.
and like i already said, im used to and usually go hatch first... but i'm trying to question my own play here and wanted some input.. i'm not trying to attack or advocate anything, just looking for some answers
a build like 14pool, 15 OL, 15 queen and hatch (start queen first then immediately put down hatch when you have the minerals, the timing is pretty close) matches (or slightly beats) doing a 15 hatch, 14 pool into queens when ready opener...
both builds are fast expanding (hatching before 18 food), so its not like you are one-basing
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Another very large benefit is the option/freedom to drop your first 25 energy of your queen on a creep tumor. Because at the your first larva injection would pop you wouldn't be able to spend all your resources on a hatch first build, the first larva injection can go to a creep tumor further spreading your early defense as well as getting you a jump on later creep spread.
I think it ultimately comes down to a fully built hatch being much easier to defend due to creep spread and vision.
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EPT
