| Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy |
|
kcdc
United States2311 Posts
I'd like this thread to be a collection of ideas for cost-effective ways to slow Z's droning in the ~18-to-30 food timing window. Anything starting after warpgate tech finishes is too late. I'd also like to limit this to *stable* ideas that are either guaranteed to deal heavy damage (pylon ramp block + cannons and zealots vs hatch first) or are sufficiently low-cost to allow for a timely expansion (stalker poke off 1 gateway). What's working for you? | ||
|
kcdc
United States2311 Posts
I've had some success with zealot + probe + rallied stalkers. You have the ability to build pylons to block the ramp and create chokes to prevent surrounds. I don't have much experience with this tho. What's a good BO? What are the considerations for zealot + zealot vs zealot + stalker off 1 gate? | ||
|
gr8ape
Canada302 Posts
however a chronoed zealot+stalker I found usually gets at least a few drone/zergling kills unless hes already turtling at his nat, and if not, if forces 6-ish lings to be made.... the stalker only poke is ok but doesnt really do *damage* in my experience, but forces him to react so I guess my conclusion is that the one zealot or one stalker forces to make maybe 4 -6 additional zerglings, while zealot+stalker gives you a nicer opportunity to actually KILL stuff | ||
|
OriginalBeast
United States709 Posts
I think the thing to keep in mind is that getting in the mindset of "I cant win after ~X drones" is bad, I play PvZ pretty passively, but I don't stuck in a I need to play with either pheonix/voidray into colossus mindset either. Many people have trained themselves to see one thing and react a certain way and people that play protoss either think "I need colossus" or "I need pheonix or blink" in pvz to combat either mutas or roaches. I think that If your being harassed by mutas, get high templar and a robo with no robo bay, get storm to deal with mutas in your main, and at your expos then get a warp prism to drop high templar to kill his drones. If you see roach hydra, colossus isn't a bad option, but the main thing to do here I feel is to make a few colossus and make sure that you 1) upgrade 2) make sure that you dont have creep at your doorstep, when a zerg throws hydras at you that aren't on creep he better be damn sure that will win, because hydras off creep die when running away. Kinda long, but what I'm trying to get at is zergs have less tech options than protoss, and it takes a glance at 1 building to instantly figure out their strat, as long as you don't get sucked into the mindset of what you should have to deal with one sort of thing you open yourself up to many strats that then makes the zerg player play under your terms *quick edit- if you want to be aggressive you may use sentries to force field the ramp to divide his main and natural, combine with a proxy pylon you can kill a natural enough times to keep the zerg on one base while you mass an army. (this can make the regular 4 gate viable) | ||
|
gr8ape
Canada302 Posts
its the same principle for one base protoss/terran, but substitue chrono boost/mules for droning up the natural | ||
|
FeltFireFox
Canada20 Posts
 What i do is 13 gate normal BO (gate, cyber, gas, gate) when my second gate is building i make a zealot and block off my entrance. then as soon as the second gate finishes i send the zeal to xel nagas clearing lings and vision and chrono two stalkers out of the gateways. 1 zealot 2 stalker pressure can do quite a bit of damage if they are unprepared. During this poke/harrass i throw up a third gate and my gas. chronoing WG. I then go sentry heavy while expanding around 34-36 kcdc i love your FE buld PvT if u want me to show you this sometime add me and message me FeltFireFox.340 | ||
|
kcdc
United States2311 Posts
On December 03 2010 00:54 OriginalBeast wrote: I think the thing to keep in mind is that getting in the mindset of "I cant win after ~X drones" is bad. You *can* win, but having played both P and Z, if P waits for warpgate tech to finish before attacking, he's letting Z get to 30 drones for free, at which point Zerg feels very comfortable. I believe it's in P's best interest to find effective ways to attack with his first, second and third gateway units. The question is what are the best ways to go about that attack? When do you want to start? What do you want your composition to be? How many probes should you bring? What will your micro tactics be? | ||
|
ShamTao
United States419 Posts
| ||
|
kelstar
Canada35 Posts
| ||
|
Phrencys
Canada270 Posts
| ||
|
kcdc
United States2311 Posts
On December 03 2010 01:04 FeltFireFox wrote: I love being aggressive againt zerg. Not because of the damage but it really throws them off and if u can make them create units instead of drones you are doing your job. What i do is 13 gate normal BO (gate, cyber, gas, gate) when my second gate is building i make a zealot and block off my entrance. then as soon as the second gate finishes i send the zeal to xel nagas clearing lings and vision and chrono two stalkers out of the gateways. 1 zealot 2 stalker pressure can do quite a bit of damage if they are unprepared. During this poke/harrass i throw up a third gate and my gas. chronoing WG. I then go sentry heavy while expanding around 34-36 kcdc i love your FE buld PvT if u want me to show you this sometime add me and message me FeltFireFox.340 Good post. This is the sort of thing I'm looking for. You start your second gate after core and before your first zealot? I believe you need to start your second gate before core to have dual-stalker production at completion of core. Zealot + dual stalker sounds like a strong push, but I wonder how much probe cutting would be required. | ||
|
FeltFireFox
Canada20 Posts
On December 03 2010 01:16 kcdc wrote: Good post. This is the sort of thing I'm looking for. You start your second gate after core and before your first zealot? I believe you need to start your second gate before core to have dual-stalker production at completion of core. Zealot + dual stalker sounds like a strong push, but I wonder how much probe cutting would be required. I cut zero probes for this build I believe the way you suggested it would require cutting though. When my second gateway finishes i have the exact amount of minerals and gas for 2 stalkers (or close to exact). | ||
|
kcdc
United States2311 Posts
On December 03 2010 01:17 FeltFireFox wrote: I cut zero probes for this build I believe the way you suggested it would require cutting though. When my second gateway finishes i have the exact amount of minerals and gas for 2 stalkers (or close to exact). Interesting. What's the BO? Gate -> gas -> core -> zealot -> gate -> 2x stalker? I assume there's either a delay between the start of your first and second stalkers or a period of idle time on your first gate between completion of your zealot and completion of your second gate. Either way, it sounds like a good opening. | ||
|
FeltFireFox
Canada20 Posts
On December 03 2010 01:32 kcdc wrote: Interesting. What's the BO? Gate -> gas -> core -> zealot -> gate -> 2x stalker? I assume there's either a delay between the start of your first and second stalkers or a period of idle time on your first gate between completion of your zealot and completion of your second gate. Either way, it sounds like a good opening. I make my second gate before my zealot...sometimes you may have to change this obviously if you see lings coming or anything that might hurt you. There is a small idle time on your first gate but if u want u can just start your first stalker and rally the second one to catch up when its done. soo BO is 13gate -> gas -> core -> gate -> zealot -> stalker x2 then transition into whatever you want | ||
|
Treehead
999 Posts
In general, my biggest problem in PvZ is that it feels like spine crawlers are ridiculously cost effective against anything short of stargate play or multiple Immortals (which, as kcdc implies, comes too late to deny the zerg his first 30 drones). Also, I find that if I want to have any hope of expanding, I need to pre-empt mutalisk play - either by a timing push that mutas are ineffective against, or by showing a strategy that causes him not to go with mutas. Just for the sake of experimentation, when does a typical zerg build hit 30 drones? When does a "safe" zerg build start getting mutalisks? | ||
|
Tozs
Denmark14 Posts
-woo first post! | ||
|
iamke55
United States2806 Posts
If they do any early hatchery build, 1 zealot and 1 stalker are the units you want to pressure with, making sure you rally your gate to your stalker and chrono boost a 2nd stalker. Early hatchery gives you a timing window where stalkers can kite everything and thus force a lot more lings than they would have to build if they have speed. Sometimes you can snipe a queen like this as well. If you scouted their build early enough, you might have time to skip the zealot entirely in favor of a faster 2nd gate (think double stalker opening). If they went for early gas, then you won't be able to do anything with stalkers before ling speed finishes. But their economy is also behind compared to a fast hatchery, so you don't need to pressure at the 1 gateway stage of the game. In this case, standard 3 gate zealot/sentry is fine. | ||
|
OriginalBeast
United States709 Posts
On December 03 2010 01:08 kcdc wrote: You *can* win, but having played both P and Z, if P waits for warpgate tech to finish before attacking, he's letting Z get to 30 drones for free, at which point Zerg feels very comfortable. I believe it's in P's best interest to find effective ways to attack with his first, second and third gateway units. The question is what are the best ways to go about that attack? When do you want to start? What do you want your composition to be? How many probes should you bring? What will your micro tactics be? Right, one of the thing I tried to highlight is that there are multiple ways of playing the game. He asked for what have we found useful, so I found being more passive useful, I don't really have mad micro Its just the only kind of micro I know how to do is that WC3 micro where you pull the damaged unit away, and I guess this kinda needed to be said, but I fee like I can't do the style of micro im comfortable with in PvZ because of creep and ling surrounds. Im running on 0 sleep so my point may be hidden behind of veil of pulling an all nighter XD | ||
|
kcdc
United States2311 Posts
On December 03 2010 01:43 Treehead wrote: I'm always afraid of pushing out too early and getting overwhelmed by the queen + a few lings, and ultimately removing a bigger chunk of my army than I am removing drones. In general, my biggest problem in PvZ is that it feels like spine crawlers are ridiculously cost effective against anything short of stargate play or multiple Immortals (which, as kcdc implies, comes too late to deny the zerg his first 30 drones). Also, I find that if I want to have any hope of expanding, I need to pre-empt mutalisk play - either by a timing push that mutas are ineffective against, or by showing a strategy that causes him not to go with mutas. Just for the sake of experimentation, when does a typical zerg build hit 30 drones? When does a "safe" zerg build start getting mutalisks? I mentioned 30 drones because that's about the max Zerg can get off a FE build before he has to start preparing for warpgate attacks. When warpgate tech finishes is an important timing in ZvP because it's the first point that Protoss is really capable of killing Zerg. Fortunately for Zerg, warpgate tech is slow enough that they have a window where they can can set up a decent economy before preparing for the scary pushes. If P can disrput this droning window a bit, they've done significant damage. As for when mutas pop, I couldn't give you an exact time, but if attack while expanding and are forced to retreat by zerglings and spine crawlers, mutas will be coming shortly. | ||
|
Treehead
999 Posts
On December 03 2010 01:51 Tozs wrote: You can also fast expand, as in the game with GuineaPig and IMJunwi, where Guinea Pig just continued to chrono probes, assuming zerg goes fast hatch, and then do a Immortal +1 zealot timing attack. Only problem is holding off roach busts or baneling busts -woo first post! I'm not really sure you can FE the way Guinea Pig did consistently. Sure, it paid off for him in those games, but if you look at Plexa's PvZ guide he says that on many maps, especially those with open naturals, 3-gate FE is the only fast expand that is "safe" - and note that at the point where you have 3 gateways, your expansion is less of a "fast expand" and more of just an expansion. Are we sure and can someone provide extensive testing that if the zerg goes hatch first, we can get away with fast expanding? I've seen some pretty scary 2-base quick roach builds that cause me to believe otherwise. | ||
| ||
|
|
OSC
FEL
Patches Events
AI Arena Tournament
FEL
Sparkling Tuna Cup
Replay Cast
WardiTV Weekly
IntoTheTV X SOOP
ByuN vs Lambo
MaxPax vs Bunny
PiGosaur Cup
[ Show More ] |
|
|
EPT
