[G][D] ZvP upgrade-centric style

Chaosvuistje

Netherlands2581 Posts

February 26 2011 12:55 GMT

Zerg vs Protoss : Upgrade centric style.

A style of ZvP that lets you comfortably get into +2 baneling drops.

Flowchart below, credits and thanks go to Funkomatic
+ Show Spoiler [Flowchart of the guide] +

Link to the image, if it doesnt resize

Introduction

The philosophy behind this style is that if you entered the lategame in ZvP, you have probably already lost. A good protoss on 4 bases has litterally everything on his fingertips. From massive amount of gateways, to a collosus voidray ball, or to a big immortal sentry high templar ball. Meanwhile, the zerg options in this phase dwindle. Roaches aren't as effective anymore, hydra's die sooner than banelings do, zerglings get their legs set on fire and mutalisks get blunk.

So with this mindset in mind, we focus on the mid and early game strength. Believe it or not, earlygame and midgame protoss and zerg are very similar in strength. The protoss has the advantage of strength in quality, a shorter reinforcement path and a variety of ways to zone armies. While the zerg has the advantage in sheer numbers of units, vision, unit speed and quickly rebuilt armies.

The build I use is getting a quick evolution chamber after expanding. Then getting a quick +1 melee upgrade for your zerglings. This clears the way for the +2 melee upgrade, which will help in the baneling bomb transition.

That wraps up this introduction. Onto the content.

-------------------------------------------Build-------------------------------------------

The build starts off with a 14 gas, 14 pool.
Once your pool finishes, build one set of zerglings, then get the queen and metabolic boost.
Send the zerglings to your natural to attack the possible probe hanging out there, then expand.
After you expanded successfully, put down an evolution chamber and make drones until 26 supply. Once the evolution chamber finishes, get the +1 melee attack.

For those who like the numbers:


9 Overlord
( optional, but advised dronescout on 12 )
14 gas
14 pool
Around 70 gas, take one drone off of gas.
16 overlord
1 set of zerglings , rally to natural
Zergling speed
Queen
19 drone , rally to natural
20 Expand.
19 Evolution chamber
Drones until 22
22 overlord
@Evolution chamber finishing, +1 melee
Drones until 26
Lings until you're relatively sure what the protoss is up to
Lair when you feel safe
@+1 melee finishing, +1 range and roachwarren

---------------------------------------Earlygame ( Holding vs one base )---------------------------------------

The ZvP early game hinges on scouting. Everything you do rests on your knowledge and the read on your opponent. For this reason I love drone scouting. Knowing where your opponent has spawned while seeing if he is going for a forge first or a gateway first is so critical and helpful. So I don't mind losing whatever minerals of mining time if I can scout a cannon rush or a proxy gate in time.

If you scout a onebaser ( aka no fast expand w/ forge ) we will get +1 melee for our zerglings no matter what. And since we want to get zergling speed AND that upgrade fast, we will go for a 14 gas 14 pool build. Taking a drone off of gas will ensure that you won't have a massive surplus of gas when the evolution chamber finishes.

If you love going 15 hatch or 14 pool 16 hatch, ditch that if you want to go for this build. If you don't get the gas this 'early' the +1 upgrade will miss its timing against most 1base protoss pushes.

One set of zerglings to kill the probe that blocks our expansion and expand right after. Build the evolution chamber after expanding.
If he pylon blocks your expansion, get a round of drones and your evolution chamber up. Once the pylon dies you'll have enough minerals to build the hatchery again.

Scout the front of the base with the lings, make sure they don't get sniped before you have some good intel. Knowing what unit comes out second is one of the single most important thing to scout in ZvP.

These are the things to look out for in descending order of importance:
1. Energy on the nexus
2. Second unit from the gateway
3. Gas
4. Chrono on warpgate research

Below are the builds that are most common and the responses to them. Including the things to look for in scouting.

Onebase plays

Stalker/zealot 'mongoloid' 4gate. + Show Spoiler +

All Chrono saved – one gas – Chronoing cyber core

Once you scout this, or feel like it is coming, scout using your lings all throughout your main base and natural. Look at all the hiding places! There is a pylon somewhere and if you don't find it soon enough he will have a reinforcing point.

Meanwhile, when you're absolutely certain that you're facing the stalker zealot 4gate. Put down a baneling nest. Build nothing but zerglings and put max drones back on gas. The +1 will help both your zerglings and your banelings if it has enough time to finish. Which won't be in time for the first warp in round.

Let him attack the natural if neccesairy, poke in and out occasionally but don't engage until you have banelings up or your +1 has finished. Move the banelings in while attacking with the zerglings. If your zerglings get hit by the zealots, retreat and let the banelings blow up on the zealots. After the zealots are badly hurt/dead, surround the ball as much as you can and crush through. Kill the warp in pylon and now, you can delay his natural as long as possible.

The game is pretty much over for him then, the only way to come back is some techswitch to something cheesy, so prepare for voids/DTs/onebase collosus (lol) and you'll be perfectly fine.

Regular 4gate. + Show Spoiler +

Some chrono saved – Second unit stalker – Chronoing cyber core – one gas.

With this build, your lings will have a good advantage over his units due to the upgrade. Since you will want mostly speedlings, all of your units will basically be 20% more effective. To put this in perspective, its basically like you can surround a zealot with 6 lings instead of 5.

Actively scout for pylons, keep a ling at each watchtower and keep some lings at his ramp to catch leaving probes. The pylon is the lifeline for his build. If you can't find it in time, keep your lings back a bit, but NEVER in your main. Keep a queen at the natural instead of the main. Because having ramps forcefielded means you'll die, regardless of what build you went, if most of your forces are in your main/come from your main.

Try to catch his army in the open. Your speedlings need a surround to do good damage. Don't engage with a lot of forcefields up, no matter how small his army is. He WILL be more cost effective in the engagement, and you want to keep his effeciency as low as possible with every engagement in ZvP.

If he hangs around in his base, or he is building up forces for a long time, build some spinecrawlers. His sentries will build up a large amount of energy, which isn't good for your zerglings or queens. In this case, spinecrawlers will make it easier for you to stay alive. Because unlike roaches, banelings, zerglings and queens, spinecrawlers cannot be forced away from the protoss or get put in a position where a stalker outranges it.

Make roaches once the tech goes online and if you have the gas and minerals to support it. And make sure you don't lose most of your lings to forcefields ( which is easy to do, don't let them catch you ).

Once you fended off the 4gate, macro up and continiue your normal game. You can usually get +2 range attack and go for a roach or roach hydra bust to punish his weaker tech and economy.

3gate 1stargate voidray push+ Show Spoiler +

Some chrono saved – two gas – stalker as second unit – No constant chrono on warpgate

You play this out like a regular 4 gate, except you constantly make queens from both of your hatcheries. Having 4 or 5 will do the trick easily. Also, put down a sporecrawler at your natural choke.

His ground army will be more flimsy than usual, less sentries because the voidrays gobble up the gas, so a much easier surround for you. Make sure the queens attack the voidrays and when you engage, select all your queens and transfuse the weakened ones as needed. The lings should be enough to overpower the smaller gateway army with added support of queens, and the voidrays will simply die to the queens range and health.

Carry on after you crushed his force. Get +2 range attack and go for a roach or roach hydra bust.

Dark templar into 4 gate+ Show Spoiler +

No chrono saved – two gas – Stalker as second unit – Next to no chrono on warpgate.

These are telltale signs of a darktemplar rush in the making. Since the protoss can't chrono buildings to make them build faster, and the only thing that you wouldn't want to chrono out as fast as possible is dark templar. Since you can't speed up the tech, nor would it matter if he got the warpgate done a minute earlier than he could warp in DT's.

Scout your whole main for proxy pylons, make sure there isn't ANY in your main since your lair is so delayed. Put down a sporecrawler at your natural ramp and keep most of your lings near your ramp ready to hold position. You don't want the templar to go out of sight range. Once you spot the templar, build an additional spore in your main just in case he does manage to slip by. You really don't want to lose to one unit sniping your lair and your evo chamber.

Any further tech he is planning will be way behind, even a 4gate after this would be super lackluster, and you can easily crush it with lots of lings. Keep mapcontroll and drone up.

Uncertain one base tech

This is the toughest one to prepare for. Since you can't really go all out in one direction.
Continiue as normal, build up a good amount of lings and drone very very little. Put a sporecrawler at your natural ramp and make sure you have 3 queens.

Actively scout his ramp for his unit composition, if you can see clues or even specific units you can go all out on one counter-path.

Make sure you stay alive, you will have more income than your protoss opponent on one base. Droning isn't as important now. You can drone later after you fended off his push.

Expand builds

Forge fast-expand + Show Spoiler +

Keep an eye out for his probe. You don't want his expand to turn into a cannon rush. Keep one drone following his scouting probe at all times and if you're uncertain, scout your main and natural for a proxy pylon.

If he gets a cannon building, attack it with 4 drones. It won't get up in time to get a shot off on those drones and you're minimizing mining time lost.

Once you kill of the scouting probe, you will want to get the gas in your main up asap and drone up. Tech to lair while not researching +1 melee just yet. When your natural finishes, build one extractor and fill it up with drones.

Once lair finishes, build a spire. Since he went forge first, his warpgate tech WILL be delayed. This means that the usual 6gate timing that kills mutalisks is delayed by a ton. Giving you time to build up muta's ( around 8 ) and then attack his flimsy army head on, focussing on the sentries. If that is too strong for the while focus on killing pylons that power gateways or the cybercore.
If he decided to get a quick stargate after expanding, get a couple of corruptors ( 2 or 3 ) to tank for the phoenixes.

Meanwhile, take the last gas at your natural and get +1 range for your roaches. Take a quick third and build up drones at your natural. Make sure you build sufficient amounts of roaches while you macro and harrass with your mutalisks.
He will want to make a counter attack, since the muta's are pinning him to 2 bases. So prepare for that. Get +1 melee once the range upgrade finishes and build a second evo chamber to get +2 range sooner should you want that.

3gate expand + Show Spoiler +

Two gas – Chrono saved up/used on warpgates – Second and third unit sentry

Your lings can't break his front, but they can pressure the nexus. Attack the nexus occasionally on the opposite side from his ramp. But DON'T overcommit. You don't want to have the nexus at 50 hp with all your lings dead. You need them as ensurrance.

Drone up your natural and tech as normal.

------------------------Midgame ( Post-lair tech, 2 bases up for the protoss )------------------------

Now that you've safely entered the midgame, we've entered the strongest period for this build.
The goal in this period is to get overlord speed and scout what he is doing. Meanwhile, you have two options regarding upgrades.

The hydra/roach path ( + 2 range attack )
The banelingdrop route ( + 2 melee attack )

There are specific situations in which you would want a hydra/roach army, or a mainly roach/ling/baneling army. Lets look at the hydra/roach one first.

Hydralisk / Roach

Once you scout that you can beat the protoss head on, you can start getting the +2 range attack and a hydra den. Make sure your creepspread is optimal for this to have good chances of working. A couple of textbook signs that you can engage the protoss.
A robo facility, but no bay. Aka, no collosus for some time
Stargate/gateway composition
Just gateway composition without templar

These armies aren't strong against the hydra/roach ball. They aren't backed up by a big splash unit like the high templar or the collosus, so if you keep the hydras behind the tanking roaches, your army will have a field day on him. When you engage, keep reinforcing. Inject your hatches during the fight since there isn't much to micro besides the occasional focusfire. Reinforce with roaches, they will arrive at the battle more quickly and if things do turn out to be sour, you can retreat and fall back to the +2 melee option.

Roach / Speedling / Banelingdrop

So you've scouted that your protoss opponent turned out to be a jackass. Instead of GG-ing when he saw you in the openingscreen, he decided to macro up and get collosus ( where does this kid get the nerve to stay in this game? Lets complain about it on TL ). While grabbing your list of profanties that you probably want to type in all caps to him, do the following.

Since we already got +1 melee, we can start +2 melee. Get a third, get overlord drop and a banelingsnest. Make a couple of overlords while rallying lings underneath them. We are going baneling-bombing t'night.
“Well gee, couldn't I have just saved me the trouble and just gone straight for baneling drops? Why would I get the melee upgrades, they don't even upgrade my roaches!”

The thing about baneling drops is, they are a one time blow. You can't counter attack with baneling drops. You can't pick off retreating units with baneling drops. You want to blow them up on their army or their probe line. And THAT is where the +2 melee comes in.

You see, +2 melee banelings 1 shot probes, and 2shot sentries. You can harrass with baneling drops if the protoss is turtling way too much, forcing a counter attack on him.

When you see the protoss ball moving in, position your overlords near your roaches. Engage with the roaches and force some forcefields out, meanwhile, drop the banelings onto the sentries and gateway units. The gateway army will die pretty brutally if you drop enough banelings onto the sentries. And since overlords are quicker than sentries, they won't be able to escape the aciddic death from above.

Now that the main protoss ball is withered down, your chances of survival have pretty much skyrocketed. It takes a long time for protoss to build up their deathball. Meanwhile, since they are on 3 bases now, you can actually start to abuse drops and multi pronged attacks to wither the protoss down. Get the carapace upgrades and +2 range upgrade when your +2 melee finishes.

If you let the protoss sit on 4 bases comfortably without harrass or multi pronged engagements, you are the one that is killing yourself. Get those actions up and show him some real pain.

If you want to know more about baneling drops, I suggest glancing over my previous guide:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=185099

Specific reactions:

6gate – 5gate robo + Show Spoiler +

When you see this build, its better to build some spinecrawlers at your natural. The forcefields will be a thorn in your feet for your roaches and lings. You have to keep your roaches and lings outside of your natural. Just so that the protoss cannot forcefield you out.

Even though by this point in time, the protoss forcefields that are saved could stop the moon from spinning, they will run out after 2 or 3 engagements. So you have to attack twice before the protoss hits your natural. Trade some roaches or lings for sentry energy.

Image added because it looked cool

Commit to the engagement as soon as the protoss attacks into your natural spinecrawlers. Just keep on reinforcing and focus the sentries/immortals.

If you spot a bunch of stalkers just hanging around near your main, keep your roachball inside your main. There is a possibility that he has blink. Be sure not to wander too far from the ramp though, you don't want to be forcefielded in. +1 roaches will be pretty costeffective versus stalkers, much more so than un-upgraded roaches.

If he retreats with a large army, don't hunt him down. He wants to pull you out of position while he is retreating, so he can kill off a large amount of roaches. Just let him get away and saturate your third, or prepare for the baneling bombs.

If he retreats with a small army, well, who am I to tell you to stop killing it? If you're at his doorstep, make sure you do economical damage. Either by sniping his third, or by killing off probes. This will ensure your survival.

-------------------------------------------Replays-------------------------------------------

Closing words and poll

Thank you for those who took the time to read this. I've been developping my style all the time in ZvP and this is where I'm currently at. My winrate has been steadily increasing ( although its not near as high as I want it to be, then again, I'm quite ambitious on that ).

I hope you take the time to practice this style once. Get a practice partner and have some fun, maybe you like it and it will enrich you experience, or maybe you won't and you can PM me that I suck and all that. I just want you to experience the raw strength and fun that +2 banelings give in ZvP, even if you do not post, just try it out.

Now for the readers poll ( this is just for my own interrest

I want to see where people win the most )

Poll: In ZvP, when do you most often win?

Winning....versus... protoss? (123)

53%

After the onebase push ( 4gate, DT rush ) (33)

14%

Lategame ( I can take the deathball, bring it! ) (23)

10%

Early game before his push ( 7 pool , roach rush ) (20)

9%

After the two base push (19)

8%

versus Forge first expands (9)

4%

During the protoss 3gate sentry expanding (6)

3%

233 total votes

Your vote: In ZvP, when do you most often win?

(Vote): Early game before his push ( 7 pool , roach rush )
(Vote): After the onebase push ( 4gate, DT rush )
(Vote): During the protoss 3gate sentry expanding
(Vote): versus Forge first expands
(Vote): After the two base push
(Vote): Lategame ( I can take the deathball, bring it! )
(Vote): Winning....versus... protoss?

imareaver3

United States906 Posts

February 26 2011 14:05 GMT

Great guide! But what's your usual timing on banelings and overlord drop? Before or after a 6-gate would hit? Also, how do you respond to a P who 6-gates, then refuses to engage your spine crawlers, denies your third, and expands behind his army? You spend so much on crawlers that you don't have the army you need to take on his.

Chaosvuistje

Netherlands2581 Posts

February 26 2011 14:14 GMT

On February 26 2011 23:05 imareaver3 wrote:
Great guide! But what's your usual timing on banelings and overlord drop? Before or after a 6-gate would hit? Also, how do you respond to a P who 6-gates, then refuses to engage your spine crawlers, denies your third, and expands behind his army? You spend so much on crawlers that you don't have the army you need to take on his.

I just remain on 2 base for a while and tech normally. As long as I don't die on 2 base, I can defeat his army if I focus on dropping on the sentries. Since he will be behind in tech he won't be able to deal with the big roach reinforcement that will barrel right into his face.

If I feel confident I just get my +2 range attack and push with roaches. They get really cost effective with every upgrade you give them. And roaches are a really good unit in ZvP since its the only thing that does not die in two hits if some tech units appear ( I'm looking at you hydralisk ).

Zerg units benefit the most from attack upgrades. You want to kill their units while you mass up more, you don't want your roaches to deal less damage while being able to survive one more zealot hit.

Scrimpton

United Kingdom465 Posts

February 26 2011 14:19 GMT

Nice writeup
I always tell myself i'm going to use bane drops, but then i never do..

in honour of the time spent writing this guide i will specifically practice this for at least 2 hours tonight

Scrimpton

United Kingdom465 Posts

February 26 2011 14:23 GMT

On February 26 2011 23:14 Chaosvuistje wrote:

Show nested quote +

i like what your saying, but i think the reasoning of why zerg upgrades are so good is wrong(well not wrong, but i think the core reasoning is much simpler).

The more units you have, the more an upgrade matters.

Zerg usually have high quantities of units, so upgrades are very effective.

Chaosvuistje

Netherlands2581 Posts

February 26 2011 14:35 GMT

On February 26 2011 23:23 Scrimpton wrote:

Show nested quote +

I get where you are coming from. But there are actually several reasons why zerg upgrades are great in ZvP. Your reason isn't wrong.

Zerg units:
- Are usually more numeral than the protoss units. More attacks = more advantages from attack upgrades.
- Are weak in the health department. It wouldn't matter if your zerglings have +10 armour, a storm will still oneshot them. Making armour upgrades not as effective.
- Zerglings can only surround so much, there is a limit on how many zerglings can attack a single unit at any given time. So by upgrading the attack you up the dps limit for zerglings.
- Roaches attack in major bursts. If I attack with a roach and retreat ( which is possible due to their speed + burrow ) I have no need for armour upgrades immediately. Even in a direct engagement, armour upgrades won't let the roach live long enough to fire another attack.
- are made to get the most damage out as quickly as possible before they die. Look at the hydra. The thing is weak, slow like an old man walking backwards on a tredmill, but if you let it attack you, it will sting like a wasp ( and then it'll burn in a glorious collosus laser , but thats your fate you sorry excuse for a larvae ! ).
- Attack upgrades for melee directly give your lategame army more strength. While defense only helps with ultralisks, melee attack upgrades benefit both the broodlord and the ultralisk.

thesideshow

930 Posts

February 26 2011 14:45 GMT

Thanks for the guide! I can see how this will be very strong, will experiment with it later today.

In the meantime, I hope you don't mind, I complied all the replays into a zip file,
http://www.mediafire.com/?puv0t0qvexosog8

Dragar

United Kingdom971 Posts

February 26 2011 14:56 GMT

One thing that's worth noting is that zerglings benefit hugely from having an upgrade advantage and suffer terribly from being behind your opponent in upgrades. Going for early upgrades is super good for zerglings. They attack so quickly, +1 attack is huge.

Roaches scale nicely with upgrades, which means that they are better with 3/3 against a 3/3 opponent than a 0/0 roach is against a 0/0 opponent.

Neither unit works so well in large numbers. I've been having success against protoss by pretty much using this style, constantly engaging when I sniff an oppening to do so. Most protoss on the ladder seem to be trying to expo and immediately go two-stargate or a collosus den (and sometimes, insanely, both), which leaves them very vulnerable to swarming in with lings or (if you think you've time) roaches, if you can find someway to get past chokes and forcefields. If you can't, having upgrades on your lings sets you up nicely to tech to mutalisks if he's gone robo first, or hydra if he's gone gate first (but you need to hit fast...).

Who'd have thought that leaving a protoss alone to tech is probably as dangerous as leaving a zerg alone to macro. I don't think being passive against protoss is viable any more.

dave333

United States915 Posts

February 26 2011 15:59 GMT

+1 lings is very strong in ZvZ as well, if you see a roach centric build. Time it right, you'll get your +1 attack fairly early and can backstab and kill roach armies.

Chaosvuistje

Netherlands2581 Posts

February 26 2011 18:25 GMT

#10

On February 27 2011 00:59 dave333 wrote:
+1 lings is very strong in ZvZ as well, if you see a roach centric build. Time it right, you'll get your +1 attack fairly early and can backstab and kill roach armies.

I have actually tried +1 melee zerglings in combination with 0/0 roaches to defend a onebase roach push today.
I absolutely DESTROYED his push, it was actually insane how cost effective it was.

I have to experiment with this more though, but I really think that +1 melee lings have a small niche in ZvZ. Although I think that niche is only versus one base roach pushes. Since you know, you don't want your entire force blown up by a single baneling. And once roaches get into too high of a number with upgrades, lings just aren't worth it. So they will only function well in that small timing window. Still, its a window worth exploring some more.

Valckrie

United Kingdom533 Posts

March 03 2011 10:43 GMT

#11

If they see you massing ling with +1 they could just not attack during that window and wait a bit longer to get that number of roaches where lings just don't cut it anymore

osten

Sweden316 Posts

March 03 2011 13:43 GMT

#12

Really nice guide. Good job!

It is time for zerg to attack. I play them because they are the defend and macro style race, but nope, even 2base vs 5base these days, after a sweet deal of time some lazers dudes come and kill what you make, whatever it is, and how much also dosen't matter. Whatever you have made. It just feels silly to try to play against the clock when you have more income. And when the opponent can make invincible walls when he wishes to. But alas this is gonna help alot. Thanks again.

Chaosvuistje

Netherlands2581 Posts

March 03 2011 14:01 GMT

#13

On March 03 2011 19:43 Valckrie wrote:
If they see you massing ling with +1 they could just not attack during that window and wait a bit longer to get that number of roaches where lings just don't cut it anymore

The point in getting +1 melee lings in ZvZ is not to only mass lings. Its only suited for a one base roach play situation, and its more or less a ZvZ 'cheese' like mutalisks.

You scout your opponent getting roaches very soon and you make an evolution chamber, start the +1 melee as soon as its finished and meanwhile build a roach warren. You can take a quicker expansion because a one base roach player completely gives up mapcontrol to make that giant push.

This gives you more production ( 1base1queen vs 2base1queen ) than him. The trick here is to get a lot of lings while the roach warren is building ( hide them from overlords ) and build only roaches with the gas that you get once the warren finishes. During the battle, reinforce with your stronger zerglings. Because the zerglings are the meatshield AND the damage dealers in the composition, the sheer mass will overwhelm him. The roaches behind the lings won't get much damage dealt to them, letting them take more shots at the opponents roaches.

Even if you barely survive the attack with only a couple of lings left standing, YOU have the expansion and the quickly massable army while he is stuck on one base. Thus you will win in the long run.

This is all very much still in the experimentation stages though. And its much more of a cheesy build than a regular roach1base defense. But it might be handy in tournament situations where you can throw the opponent off by doing something other than ling/baneling or roach/hydra. You have to switch it up every once in a while too.

Grapefruit

Germany439 Posts

March 03 2011 14:01 GMT

#14

Great guide, good sir. I'll try it tonight.

But one question, how do you deal with it when he has Void Rays mixed into his ball? Do you ever get the spire, or do you depend on your drop killing enough to let you Hydras take care of them?

Chaosvuistje

Netherlands2581 Posts

March 03 2011 14:17 GMT

#15

On March 03 2011 23:01 Grapefruit wrote:
Great guide, good sir. I'll try it tonight.

But one question, how do you deal with it when he has Void Rays mixed into his ball? Do you ever get the spire, or do you depend on your drop killing enough to let you Hydras take care of them?

If he has decided to go voidray + gateway army, you can simply overpower the gateway army and switch to mutalisks completely and kill his mapcontrol. You definitely have to make sure you don't let your overlords get sniped by voidrays though. He should commit fully with that kind of army if you want to kill it off.

Voidrays without an army to sit infront of die to anti air so quickly. You could even decide to make multiple queens ( which are good anyway for transfuses on air units/spinecrawlers/overlords and creeptumors ) and just use them in your army.

Chaosvuistje

Netherlands2581 Posts

March 05 2011 14:45 GMT

#16

Added a couple of new replays on the newer maps to the OP. Still going strong against most 3base turtle pushes.

I'd love to know if people have been experimenting with this style yet or if my post has proven to be futile. If there is still interrest in this I will continiue to add replays, ifnot, then I'll let it rot.

Super_bricklayer

France104 Posts

March 05 2011 16:29 GMT

#17

Just watched the new ones. I have to say that while i find this strat very powerful, it also feels very "all insih".

On the last one on ST you didn't make more than 50 drones, your opponent took his third while you stay on two building a big army. Luckily he didn't make so many probes and his macro wasn't as powerful as it should be for a toss on 3 bases, he also tilted a little and invest way too much on DT while just 3 was enough to kill your third. After the big fight he should be able to produce way more than you, so that game in particular don't convince me very much, it's even the opposite actually. :s

Don't get me wrong i think you have a very powerful timing with the +2 +2 hit, still i think it's a bit too much all in to be enough robust. The lack of armor upgrade makes feel that way too.

For the theory now, i do think that somes Roaches +1 and speed +2 with some bane drop can be a solid option to handle mid game pushes ( against a pure robo/gate build obviously you'll need AA if he mixes more stargate units in his army ) even if roaches number scares me a little as they cost quite a lot, but you need a late game plan imo, with way more eco and T3 following ( ultra or brood i guess depending on his compo ). Your OP's statement about the mid game is probably true tho still i feel that's way of thinking put you too much all in, i didn't see any follow up in your replays so that would be my critic on your play. ( well, i don't remember the old ones, i watched so many those last 2 weeks )

Edit : I'll add that i still look more on that topic, i find that OP very nice, and it deserve more attention imo. It's just that your theory feels better than you play but i guess it's like that for most of us so don't take my words too bad.

mehau

19 Posts

March 05 2011 17:45 GMT

#18

Great guide bro, I will definitely try it and post some feedback.

Let me commend an additional thing. The descriptions of what strat P is going based on what you see while scouting is something that will benefit me the MOST as a gold Z. I think this is the kind of information that paves the way to diamond/master, because unless you have all day to analyze replays most noobs will never learn this on their own.

General question - is there anywhere this information (scouting these things indicates this build) exists for more variants/races? And to the OP - I was thinking of maybe compiling this specific info myself if not, would you mind if I use the stuff in your thread as a starting point (with credit ofc)?

Chaosvuistje

Netherlands2581 Posts

March 05 2011 18:25 GMT

#19

On March 06 2011 02:45 mehau wrote:
Great guide bro, I will definitely try it and post some feedback.

Let me commend an additional thing. The descriptions of what strat P is going based on what you see while scouting is something that will benefit me the MOST as a gold Z. I think this is the kind of information that paves the way to diamond/master, because unless you have all day to analyze replays most noobs will never learn this on their own.

General question - is there anywhere this information (scouting these things indicates this build) exists for more variants/races? And to the OP - I was thinking of maybe compiling this specific info myself if not, would you mind if I use the stuff in your thread as a starting point (with credit ofc)?

I don't know. I do know that there is a thread about important timings and the like. I don't mind you using the info I laid out here as long as you link back to this thread where you found it

. Best of luck to you.

And yes, knowing is 90% the part of zerg. Your mechanics can be top notch jaedong level, but if you can't interpert information that is given to you, you're forever doomed to micro your zerglings against banshees(F.ex.).

jazzbassmatt

United States566 Posts

March 05 2011 21:10 GMT

#20

This thread is really helpful!

How would you respond against a Toss that FEs (or 3gate expands), then immediately into 2stargate phoenix? On longer maps, I think this is difficult for me to deal with because hydras are so slow that counter attacking is difficult. Even if you are able to defend and get your third, it seems like in most cases the toss will be able to expand safely himself while teching to collosus. A 2 base hydra timing push before he gets collosus can be powerful, but good toss players seem to be able to hold this off.

Chaosvuistje wrote:

Once lair finishes, build a spire. Since he went forge first, his warpgate tech WILL be delayed. This means that the usual 6gate timing that kills mutalisks is delayed by a ton. Giving you time to build up muta's ( around 8 ) and then attack his flimsy army head on, focussing on the sentries. If that is too strong for the while focus on killing pylons that power gateways or the cybercore.
If he decided to get a quick stargate after expanding, get a couple of corruptors ( 2 or 3 ) to tank for the phoenixes.

If you scout two stargates instead of one, do you still go spire, just with corruptors? Are you still able to do enough damage? How do you transition out of this (i.e. do you keep building corruptors, stop building mutas, tech to hydra, attack, etc.)

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