|
+ Show Spoiler [Editor's Note] +
This build is not new, it simply has been brought up again because of its usage in the GSL. Lets work together to collect information and data about this build and its usage in competitive play.
Overview
This build allows you to apply heavy pressure to standard Protoss builds. In many cases it is very difficult for the Protoss to hold off this early pressure. You can often bust the front and kill the expansion, sometimes even ending the game outright. Even if the attack is unsuccessful, you will be on even footing economically, have an extra base, and be ahead on tech.
The build is a variation on the standard gas/pool expand. You get your expansion, 2 queens, an initial 4 Zerglings with speed, and then you drone. In the early midgame you push with a large number of Speedlings and Roaches while taking a 3rd. It has been used to great effect by top level players, most notably in GSL May Code S, Ro 16.
Opening Build
- Standard Gas/Pool Expand
- 14 Gas
- 14 Pool
- 15 Overlord
- 16 Zergling x 4
- 16-18 Hatch (depending on when/if you get your expansion blocked).
- 20 Queen
- 22 Speed, don't take guys off gas (finish at ~6:00)
- 24 Queen
- 26 Overlord
- 28 Overlord
- 34 Roach Warren (finish at ~6:30)
- 38 Evolution Chamber (finish at ~6:45)
- Pump ~10 Roaches and ~14 Zerglings
- Take your 3rd and continue pumping Zerglings.
- Upgrade Lair during the attack.
Depending on map size, your attack should hit around 8:15-8:30 with the initial 10 Roaches and 14 Zerglings, with many more Zerglings on the way. Standard 3 gate expand builds will have 6 Senties, 2 Zealots, a Stalker or two, and perhaps a cannon. Protoss usually use the Pylon powering the cannon as part of the wall, so you can snipe the Pylon with your Roaches.
Followup
If you manage to waste all of his forcefields and/or kill a good amount of units, you can followup with around huge round of Zerglings. You still will be about the same economically, especially if you kill some Probes at the natural. You can end the game outright with the second round of Zerglings. However, if he has killed all your Roaches you need to back off.
If the Protoss player is very skilled he can defend. On maps with a wide open natural he probably wont be able to keep his expansion alive. Don't get greedy and push up the ramp into the main. Kill the natural and back off. Remember you have your 3rd coming up. If he does keep his expansion alive, not to worry. You should be even economically and be up a base and tech.
If the Protoss went Stargate, the Voidray should pop out around the time of your attack. The Protoss will use this to defend, so in the mean time get a third queen at home.
After the attack you can transition into whatever you'd like. You'll have Lair, so you can player standard Roach/Hydra or Roach/Baneling/Infestor.
Replays, VODs, and Discussion
|
Morrow and Darkforce never said it isn't viable.
They said safe 3 gate expands, forge fast expands, beat it, which puts the zerg at disadvantage. And dt openers crush it.
It relies on your opponent cutting corners or missing forcefields.
|
On April 30 2011 04:14 Mithrandir wrote:
Morrow and Darkforce never said it isn't viable.
They said safe 3 gate expands, forge fast expands, beat it, which puts the zerg at disadvantage. And dt openers crush it.
It relies on your opponent cutting corners or missing forcefields.
You're right I was generalizing too much. Removed that part of the editor's note.
|
This is very strong against toss that cut corners and try to get greedy. I do some sort of variation anytime I see protoss start expoing with less than 5 sentries or something else. I've seen people try to go 3 gate, expand, skip forge get stargate, etc. and just roll them instantly.
However, I would not do this against any cautious toss that can FF and keep you out while warping in reinforcements.
Scout well and if you see signs of greed, go ahead and punish him. Protoss standard play is already very very greedy all things considered, so them trying to cut corners even more just means that you absolutely have to go kill him.
|
One of my biggest pet peeves is people who say, "If your opponent defends perfectly, this doesn`t work. Therefore, this build is bad." Well no shit perfect defense should hold this off, if it were actually impossible to win against an attack that would be the most overpowered bullshit ever. So yes, in thory Protoss can defend this with minimal damage, but that doesn`t mean they will. Even if you don`t kill them, this attack wastes force fields, keeps Protoss honest, and keeps them on their toes even if it fails.
Edit: whoops, misread some of the previous posts, so what I wrote seems a little harsh. Consider it a preemptive strike on all the naysayers that are bound to show up :p
|
On April 30 2011 05:23 dave333 wrote:
This is very strong against toss that cut corners and try to get greedy. I do some sort of variation anytime I see protoss start expoing with less than 5 sentries or something else. I've seen people try to go 3 gate, expand, skip forge get stargate, etc. and just roll them instantly.
However, I would not do this against any cautious toss that can FF and keep you out while warping in reinforcements.
Scout well and if you see signs of greed, go ahead and punish him. Protoss standard play is already very very greedy all things considered, so them trying to cut corners even more just means that you absolutely have to go kill him.
3 Gate expand is considered greedy?
Building the maximum amount of unit producing structures we can support on 1base, waiting for them to complete, and getting at least a round of units out before dropping an expansion...greedy?
|
On April 30 2011 06:26 Chemist391 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2011 05:23 dave333 wrote:
This is very strong against toss that cut corners and try to get greedy. I do some sort of variation anytime I see protoss start expoing with less than 5 sentries or something else. I've seen people try to go 3 gate, expand, skip forge get stargate, etc. and just roll them instantly.
However, I would not do this against any cautious toss that can FF and keep you out while warping in reinforcements.
Scout well and if you see signs of greed, go ahead and punish him. Protoss standard play is already very very greedy all things considered, so them trying to cut corners even more just means that you absolutely have to go kill him. 3 Gate expand is considered greedy? Building the maximum amount of unit producing structures we can support on 1base, waiting for them to complete, and getting at least a round of units out before dropping an expansion...greedy?
Signs on greed in 3 gate expand are (1) building the forge in the main, (2) going Stargate before building another around of units, etc..... 3 gate expo itself isn't greedy at all. but if you cut corners like trying to defend your forge instead of using it for sim city, Zerg can punish you.
|
It's definitely one of the more viable strategies recently, but it does rely on your opponent fucking up to a certain extent. Still, nobody can respond perfectly every time. It's a coinflip that comes up heads more often than not.
Well done writeup.
|
The gas timing on this build intuitively seems very inefficient. I've never done this exact build, but I've tried stuff very similar. Seems you would be much better off pulling guys from gas after speed and adding a second geyser in there close to the roach warren timing could basically have the exact same build with more minerals.
Each geyser gives you about 100 gas every 50 seconds (I remember this timing from back in beta when 1-base muta was popular and if you did 14/14 and built a queen you would have 100 gas for lair right when it finished).
WIth 14/14 your pool goes down at around 2:02 and you start mining gas at around 2:10 I think, so in those 4:20 until your roach warren pops you should've extracted ~500 gas when 10 roaches is only 250 plus speed another 100 so you have an extra 150, you might want lair, but you probably don't need it THAT fast. I don't even think with that you should double extractor if you plan to take a quick 3rd.
Note: I just checked IMLosirA - SlarerS_Alicia game 1 and he had only 1 drone on gas 2 more around the time he build the roach warren built only 8 roaches for the attack. This is probably just a timing crutch / avoid giving away too much scouting info as obviously you should only mine gas so that you have it right before you need it, but it's not THAT big of a deal, only a small mineral sacrifice (possibly none if you don't have the larva).
I know these details sound picky, but they're a HUGE deal for a well-timed build. For example, do you have larva for 10 roaches? If you don't, that's wasted gas and your rally will be hugely delayed. You don't want to send anything but lings behind your roach rally as they won't get there until much later whereas lings produced in the next larva pop will get there the same time.
|
Do you take any more gases?
|
you dont have to open 14/14 for this build, I generally prefer a later gas against a protoss (like 14pool/15hatch/20gas) and you will still have enough gas for your roaches and your speed will finish before any 4gate timing can hit and you will have it some time when you do this rush.
I dont know a general BO for this, and as this is a rush that you go for if you see him cutting corners, I dont think an exact BO is available (considering your expo being blocked, map depended...)
what you should watch out for if you do this rush:
+ very fast Protoss expansion
+ low Unit/canon count
+ bad building placement
+ open expansion (lot of angles to attack the nexus or anything around it)
+ greedy tech follow up
- does he have tech that needs lairtech to be safe (dt's, void rays)
- ramp expansion (shakuras)
the strenght of the build:
+) this attack secures a third, which is usually pretty hard in ZvP
+) you have a chance of winning the game against a Protoss that has bad unit control (bad ForceFields) or is cutting corners
+) Protoss players will have to stop playing greedy if this timing attack spreads, therefore making the midgame "easier" for zerg in general (like 6gate has killed muta openings)
+) keeping the sentry count and energy low for any follow up
the weakness' of the build:
-) reinforcing with roaches is hard because you only have one gas and no speed, so once your intial roaches are dead, the rush is usually over
-) if for some reason his army count is higher than scouted (especially the stalker count), your roaches cant retreat (no speed upgrade) and you either go allin with this rush, or you end up behind in economy
-) if he has some tech you don't know that requires a lair to counter it's pretty much checkmate for you
-) if you go for this build, but cant go for this push (proper Protoss play) your lair will be late (burrow!, hydras, roach speed, infestor, spire), which means your midgame choices are quite limited
which brings me to a question: what do you do if you see a proper wall with 1-2 well placed canons, and a big army, so this attack will be extremly risky.
Suddenly you have a lot of minerals and gas and larvae, but no lair and no third.
If you drone hard and/or take a third, he can kill you (he has a proper/strong army), so I guess you need some unit's no matter what. So I guess you build some roaches and lings, and the lair and an evo-chamber with 1-2 spore crawlers to be safe, and get 2more gases or something like that, and then go for roach upgrades (as hydras/mutas/infestor will be pretty late with the late lair and the low gas mining)?
or take a far away expansion (at least on a good map...)?
|
Is it better to open with the Idra build, wich is 15 pool 16 hatch or 15 pool 16 extractor 15 OL if the hatch got block ?
|
That's not losiras build order btw. He doesn't make an ovie at 15 and I'm pretty sure he goes 15/16 pool 15 gas. Also he pulls drones off of gas until he lays down a roach warren.
|
I wouldn't really use the Losira vs Alicia game as a reference. Alicia simply didn't play well at all, wasted so much sentry energy in the middle of the map.
On the topic though, I think this build's role has been figured out more or less. It's a semi all in that can punish a Protoss fast expanding player if he cuts corners to maximize his economy. I don't see too much more to say. I see Idra use a ~28 drone roach ling all in when he's on close positions on metalopolis or shattered T. He also did it vs Socke in their NASL game on typhoon, so you could use that as a reference I think.
|
LosirA is more like this
10 ov
16 gas (1 drone in gas)
15 pool
16 hatch
16 ling
17 ling
18 ov
18 queen (double extractor trick)
22 metabolic
28 overlord
28 overlord
35 roach warren (move 2 more drones to gas)
38 evo chamber (*)
38 overlord
38 overlord
41 roach x 10
60 lings x ~14
[move forward and prepare for attack]
66 hatch
66 lings x ~16 - rally them all to opponent's base
->He hits exactly at 8:25 right when all roaches get there
76 overlord
During the attack he did lings the whole time, like 24 more, and started getting the +1 attack for roaches at 9:04, together with Lair
I may be missing something, but I think it's a little more precise.
I also noticed IdrA went 24 overlord, and it seems to make more sense, since if you get it on 26 you'll be supply blocked, specially if toss delayed your hatch (2 extra food you aren't getting).
* LosirA did this exactly when Alicia put up his Stargate, he didn't see the stargate, but he did notice Alicia didn't have that many units up, so I'm guessing his game sense is pretty good and it's a safe thing to do, not really something that will actually help you for your first battle, but something that will help you in case you opponent goes voids or dt's.
|
Good build. It will probably get a lot of wins for free since it requires little skill to execute. Give it another two weeks or so and Protoss will have enough practice to defend it with greater success ---- basically sit ready to instacast forcefield while doing everything else standard.
|
I find that the build in the OP isn't all-in enough in situations where you're trying to go for the win immediately (IE close positions metalopolis). I would attempt to get no more than 24 drones, and pull drones off gas after ~200 (for 8 roaches). If you're going to do a transition, maybe try another round and a half of drones, take all 4 gases, and go for a hydra/ling push. The ability to take a third isn't as bad on temple, but it's still pretty awkward, and I would often rather go all-in. This is on close positions of course.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
