Lately, Terrans have started applying a lot of pressure via multiple variations of hellion openers. For zergs trying to rely on speedling/spine defense into early mutas, these can be very hard to deal with if not outright impossible.
Some of the solutions we have seen revolve around getting mutas even sooner, getting lair before ling speed. Roaches are not generally considered a very strong option because they do not scale well into the later game and cede map control to mass hellions.
Players like Liquid`Sheth have shown some cool roach pressure builds that can help manage greedy/thin terran openers while setting zerg up for nice follow-ups in most of the currently popular cases.
For high-level discussion on the build and Sheth himself demonstrating the thinking behind it, see Sheth ZvT on 12weeks with mrbitter:
There are many variations one can use, but this is one of them that can be very effective:
The build
15 hatch 15 pool 17 gas 17 overlord @pool, double queens pair of lings to kill scouting SCV and to check front 24-26 (@SCV gone) roach warren 28 double ovie @warren, 5-8 roaches, go pressure
This is just one variant - other ways to get to the same point are for instance 15pool 16 hatch 18gas etc.
Prerequisites for the build - when to go for it To make this build work, terran has to open with gas/rax or rax/gas, which you should scout with your scouting drone. It also has potential vs 1rax FE or CC first builds. Double gas openers are a red flag - if you scout terran grabbing a second gas, he is most probably going for either very quick tanks or for banshees, both of which would make the roach pressure less attractive. To manage this, you can obviously steal the 2nd gas.
This build is not optimal vs 2rax, so if you suspect 2rax, deviate from this build to deal with that.
Off one gas, terran can also open 3rax w/ stim or quick marauders. Currently, these are less popular options, but roaches with added speedlings are not terrible units to have in either case.
Executing the pressure The roaches should start at about 5:40 and pop at 6:10. Quick reactor hellions will force you to block your ramp with a queen until the roaches pop, but after that terran is on the run. On most maps, the roaches should arrive at about 7:00, or slightly later than that.
When arriving at the terran base, remember that you are set out to do pressure. Utilize the high HP of the roaches to micro them back and try to avoid losing any roaches. Do guaranteed damage instead of risking the roaches needlessly.
Target of opportunity to look out for: depots at the front, workers repairing bunkers, add-ons, marines etc. Knocking down the marine count can be very effective and will delay a Terran push by quite a bit. Three roaches one-shot marines and workers, so with 6 roaches you can have snipe 2 at a time. Hellions are also obviously nice to snipe.
If Terran has no bunker, no marauders and no tanks, he is forced to pull workers to defend adequately. That means you can snipe workers and do some relatively strong damage. Once your roaches are at low health or you feel you can no longer accomplish meaningful damage, pull back.
While this is happening, you should drone like there is no tomorrow. You have two hatcheries with queens pumping drones. If you see a terran expansion, you can probably start a third. This goes double if you managed to knock down the marine count. You can pull drones off gas for extra mineral income to supercharge the droning.
This build transitions very smoothly to a number of midgames: You can do roach/bling/ling losira-style. You can also transition straight to muta/ling or ling/bling, keeping the roaches around for added beefier defense against incoming harass. You can also go for a pure roach/infestor build. There is no need at all to ever make another roach the entire game. Typically, upon pulling back at about 8+ minutes, you should have done some damage to the terran, and will be sitting on 40 drones on two bases with possibly a third started.
The Thinking behind the build - why it has strong potential
The Good Currently, Terrans are cutting a lot of corners in their builds. it is not uncommon to see a lot of add-ons and an expo being constructed early on, with virtually no units and no bunkers to boot early on. Terran is relying on Zergs to drone, and is abusing the perceived lack of strong pressure to get more economy and more tech for a stronger push later, relying on early harass to misdirect the zerg into dealing with the harass at their home turf instead of bringing the noise to the Terran.
Another strong suite of the build is that forces Terran to reveal exactly what they are making. When roaches come knocking, Terrans can't hide their tech. If they are making tanks/marauders/banshees, they have to bring them to the front. They also have to bring all their marines to deal with the threat. This lets zerg get reliable scouting.
Thirdly, applying pressure means zerg is free to drone with impunity after making the roaches. There are very few ways for Terran to punish zerg for doing so. Even if Terran is preparing some form of one-base all-in, the roaches will reveal it upon arriving at the Terran base, and zerg can start reacting accordingly. If Terran is skimping on units or expanding, zerg can start a third behind this pressure.
The build is very conducive to a multitude of followups. Once the roaches are made, zerg can temporarily pull drones off gas. Zerg can also continue mining to get ling speed and lair very soon afterwards.
The Bad Now on to the obvious downsides. This form of roach pressure is no panacea. First of all, your lair tech and ling speed will be delayed by several minutes. Exactly how delayed it is depends on how many roaches you make. Making 5 roaches is light pressure - if you make 8, you better cause some serious damage. Longer rush distances weaken the roach pressure and make the build slightly worse. Quick marauder, tanks or banshees will put you behind and leave you scrambling to get ling speed and some lings at the very least. The damage you can do will also be minimized. Quick banshees do however have to deal with the roaches at the terran home first, letting you buy time to get spores as needed.
On matchup development and side-stepping via applying pressure I'd like to preface this by noting that I am only a lowly diamond EU zerg player, so take this write-up with a grain of salt.
It's part of the natural development of every matchup that players will start looking at the most popular style, trying to find a way to gain an edge by sacrificing some other aspect.
There are many examples of this - for instance, Mondragon among others exposed the void ray into colossus into gateway style being very weak to mass ground units with a strong economy, exposing a weakness in that greediest variant of the void ray/colossus build. More recently, roach/ling aggression demonstrated that 3gate sentry expand without any cannons is very weak to early pressure, and essentially started a switch where protosses no longer feel very comfortable opening that way on many of the maps. The threat of roach/ling also meant that doing pressure of 3gate expand with a zealot/sentry push became a supremely risky proposition, likely to lose the entire game if zerg did infact start a roach/ling attack.
Since 3gate expand no longer carried the same threat and now seems to require at least one cannon, it no longer has the same cost/benefit ratio it had before - this has led to protosses to look to other openings instead such as 1gate FE or forge FE, both of which have a hard time putting pressure on the zerg in the early game, which zergs right now feel more than content to exploit by droning lots. In the future, there is no doubt in my mind that in addition to strong 2-base timings, more harassy builds will prop up. We are already seeing some of this development in NS_hoseo.Sage's zealot/phoenix play for instance.
After the depot before rax change, zergs saw no downside in opening hatch first at all, but 2rax pressure made zergs change the way they opened hatch first and started a switch where hatch first was no longer considered safe on some maps.
Since zergs have again started to favour speedlings and early mutas, strong hellion harass while sacrificing beefy units let terran gain map control and expand at the very least as quickly as zerg. However, to gain this edge terrans are sacrifing safety and solidity. Early roach pressure utilizes a timing in hellion-heavy openers where the terran defense is weakest.
All of this is part of the natural progression of the game. Strong builds are developed, holes are poked into them, and in response the build that was initially strong becomes a new staple in a slightly more stable form. Likewise on the flip-side, pressure that earlier was supremely effective can either vanish as being demonstrably unviable vs the new safer variants of the build, or become part of the standard way to play out the matchup when executed in a less committed form.
If more zergs opened with roach pressure, opening with mass reactor hellions or quick blue-flame hellions or a SlayerS-style hellion/marine drop while expanding will seem like a less attractive proposition - at the very least, terran would have to get a bunker or sacrifice an early scan to feel safe in executing those builds, rendering them less powerful and making them hit a slightly later timing which would be easier to deal with just by standard zerg play.
Final thoughts This has been an excessively wordy write-up for a very simple concept. To recap: looking at some recent hellion-heavy openers coming that are giving zergs much trouble, they seem hard to defend once they hit. However, before they get up and running they seem vulnerable to early pressure. Roach pressure after expand seems like one way to exploit this vulnerability. What other ways can we as zerg players come up with to side-step the issue by early pressure instead of looking for how to defend it? Are there better/more economic ways to accomplish the same goal?
Play around with roach pressure. Instead of feeling bad about balance, let's use the tools we have at our disposal to come up with new ideas to lob the ball back in the terran court.
Replays No strategy post is complete without replays. Since I am only a diamond player, I do not wish to put my replays forward as the be-all end-all, but simple as an example of how it can work. Succesful roach pressure
Hmmm very nice read.. I play T.. my only question is are the roaches going to potentially just die? and then those roaches could have been drones.. Still could get alot of players off gaurd..
I dont like playing Z by following builds. I think Z is suposed to be reactionary and not a specific build you blindly follow. The perfect Z should just make units in response to what he can see his oponent do. But yeah I guess it can be a good response if you see your oponent going hellion. Hoping that he does not make a bunker / marauders / marines behind it
The roaches are probably never going to die entirely. The only way you would be committing to losing them would be if terran had concussive shell researched, and I haven't seen a single concussive shell upgrade being researched that early since at least September last year. Roaches are amazingly tanky and you can micro hurt ones back to prolong their life by quite a bit, especially vs hellions and marines.
Yes, the roaches could have been drones. However, *would* they have been drones? Normally the threat of terran pressure would force at least 5-8 larva worth of lings and a spine at a roughly equivalent point in time. Naturally, the lings are better at grabbing and maintaining map control, except vs hellion openers which are increasingly common.
The bigger problem is the gas spent on roaches which is not spent on the "ideal" tech path if you choose to not continue along the roach path. You are setting your ling speed and lair back by at least 1:30-2:00 minutes compared to opening ling speed directly.
The build is not designed to rely on catching terran off guard. It is still relatively effective even if terran knows it is coming, by forcing a defensive response terran would prefer to avoid - this is why terrans are forgoing the bunker in the first place. You are also not committing to making the roaches (other than by starting the roach warren) before your scouting pair of lings can look at his front, at which point you can decide whether to proceed with the roaches or start ling speed and keep droning instead.
On August 02 2011 21:30 JoeAWESOME wrote: I dont like playing Z by following builds. I think Z is suposed to be reactionary and not a specific build you blindly follow. The perfect Z should just make units in response to what he can see his oponent do. But yeah I guess it can be a good response if you see your oponent going hellion. Hoping that he does not make a bunker / marauders / marines behind it
Well, the 15h double queen opening is viable vs anything. The single gas is alerting you to the possibility of hellions, which you react to by putting down a roach warren. You do not have to commit to actually making the roaches before you can see what his front looks like - if it has a reactored factory, you can react by making the roaches and pushing.
Obviously, it would be more ideal to keep on droning until the last possible second. However, currently terrans are abusing this behaviour by forgoing adequate defense and getting upgrades/production facilities/expansion sooner. Since this is weak to early pressure, I feel this can and should be exploited so that terrans will feel obliged to open a bit safer instead.
I have been playing around with Roach openings for a bit (only on a low masters level), I've had some good results if the Terran played really greedy, and some bad results. I had a game I rushed 4 roaches to pressure the Terran and check for Hellions found 4 marines pushed up his ramp found out he was double expanding 3 CCs in main, I'm finding alot more Terrans doing greedy things like this since Zerg can't effectively scout it with Lings or Ovies. One game I played I scouted Terran doing 1 rax 1 gas so I had ling speed started he scouts my Pool get 4 lings to kill the scout as he scouted my expos hatch finishing so I thought I'd get some roaches and push canceled speed made warren get to the Terrans base instead of factory he dropped another Rax and made Mauraders off both Raxes even but he scouted I was opening speed and didn't see a Warren strange reaction to speedlings imo. But I'm probably going to try my best to make Roaches my standard in ZvT not because I like them I love Speedlings way more, But BFH are so damn annoying.
Here's an extremely safe, tight build with faster roaches (4 of them) that's a bit less economical (but not as much as you'd think).
(no drone scout) 11 overpool 15 extractor trick, queen, 4 lings 19/18 overlord 19 hatch (produce drones) Queen finishes: extractor 1st inject 1/2-2/3 done: roach warren 25-26/26 overlord If done properly, 2nd inject, overlord, and roach warren should finish simultaneously, and you should have money for four roaches (fourth might be a tiny bit behind - build it at the natural) Build a creep tumor with the queen, take one drone off gas, start an overlord and then a second queen. Drone as you pressure.
I'm never a fan of builds that require me not to scout, Its not a good practice imo its just a personal thing of mine. Scouting with a Drone is a must for me EXCEPT in ZvZ theres really no information I need that early.
As of now roach pressure is still very viable. Granted its not a build you can do every game. When you learn when and how to pull it off it is extremely effective. However by some strange miracle I do have one point you might consider adding that you've thus far omitted. (Sheth may cover it but im not gonna watch the youtube vid)
On most maps you can safely hide your overlord close to the Terran's ramp. When your roaches hit the front bring it forward for vision. This can help tremendously in making quick work of otherwise unrealistic targets. When you're ready to retreat with your roaches move the overlord to safety beforehand.
Also, I'll include a replay of a game I played earlier that shows how you can make roaches work against a reaper expand. While my terran opponent late game strategy was rather unique the early game plays out like a lot of the zvt's i've been playing lately. This was on the ladder, both masters. Sporadic Vs MuslimBeard Shakuras Plateau
On August 02 2011 21:51 -Dustin- wrote: I'm never a fan of builds that require me not to scout, Its not a good practice imo its just a personal thing of mine. Scouting with a Drone is a must for me EXCEPT in ZvZ theres really no information I need that early.
You do scout with my build - with the first four lings, which are out early enough to catch a 2 rax moving out across the map (in which case you deviate) and to look at his front before you start the roach warren. You don't get to count his gas but I don't think that's a serious problem.
On August 02 2011 21:55 Sporadic44 wrote: On most maps you can safely hide your overlord close to the Terran's ramp. When your roaches hit the front bring it forward for vision.
That's very useful. I am very wary of losing my overlord to the first few marines Terran makes - do you have more replays on other maps or screenshots so that one could divine the proper scout path to make this happen without risking losing the ovie?
I myself play the Sheth opening against helion opening: gas at 17, two queens, drones until 27 and then roach warren, 2 overlords and roaches until 44. I then find myself with around 7 or 8 roaches; but I feel still a bit uncomfortable with that. Here is why.
you have to push with these 8 or so roaches; otherwise 3 or 4 roaches would have been enough to defend. Yet I think there are two main issues:
1. do you push with all of them, or only a few? if only with a few (lets say 4 or 5), you probably won't achieve much pressure on terran expansion. if with all of them, there is the risk of a helion run by. you feel then really stupid, as you have 7/8 roaches and still get caught off guard by helions.
2. what if he is doing banshee? then you loose a lot: even if you enter his base and he has to defend... he will usually have something to defend, a bunker, sometimes a non sieged tank, couple of helions and scvs. so it's kind of hard to go inside his first base. With banshee, he will eventually kill all your roaches, which is a lot . To avoid that, would you recommend sacrifying an overlord or poking with zergling at least to scout his base when your roaches pop up to see if you should attack? 2bis. if he is still on one base, when you arrive with your roaches, should you try to attack ?
For these two reasons, I feel quite annoyed when I have to go out with my roaches. Any solutions to fix that would be welcomed!
two additional questions: 3. how do you evaluate your position to know if you are fine after the push (timing of terran expansion, quantity of losses on both sides, your number of drones, etc. what exactly?) 4. how do you transition to mid game? i.e. when do you take your three other gases? do you 3rd expand first, or lair tech first? do you speedling or lair tech first?
If anyone has answers to that, I'll feel really happy!!
On August 02 2011 21:59 Usyless wrote: You do scout with my build - with the first four lings, which are out early enough to catch a 2 rax moving out across the map (in which case you deviate) and to look at his front before you start the roach warren. You don't get to count his gas but I don't think that's a serious problem.
I think scouting the gas is pretty serious really the only reason I scout Terran, It makes it way easier to find out what build they are doing, Which in return makes it easier to react. Of course it DOESN'T tell you 100% what they are doing but it slims down the amount of builds they can be doing. Unless you are lucky with your spawn and send the Ovie the right way but I preffer not relying on my Ovie to check it, And I feel the strength of an early Roach push is if they got gas and are teching.
On August 02 2011 22:00 kmh wrote: That's very useful. I am very wary of losing my overlord to the first few marines Terran makes - do you have more replays on other maps or screenshots so that one could divine the proper scout path to make this happen without risking losing the ovie?
Yup of course. This is the only other game I opened with super quick roach aggression last night. It's a PvZ but the idea is essentially identical for both protoss and terran.
Some other notable places are the third on Xel'Naga Caverns, and the cliffs above the natural on Tal Darim. Experiment with how you position your overlords early game. Their spotting is useful for countless things.
On August 02 2011 21:59 Usyless wrote: You do scout with my build - with the first four lings, which are out early enough to catch a 2 rax moving out across the map (in which case you deviate) and to look at his front before you start the roach warren. You don't get to count his gas but I don't think that's a serious problem.
I think scouting the gas is pretty serious really the only reason I scout Terran, It makes it way easier to find out what build they are doing, Which in return makes it easier to react. Of course it DOESN'T tell you 100% what they are doing but it slims down the amount of builds they can be doing. Unless you are lucky with your spawn and send the Ovie the right way but I preffer not relying on my Ovie to check it, And I feel the strength of an early Roach push is if they got gas and are teching.
I find the only thing I need to see that early on is whether he is attacking me with an early 2 rax, and the lings are soon enough. The roach pressure is strong against gas openings and gasless expands alike. Worst case scouting scenario is that you reach his front and see a rax and depots and even when the roaches come he's put up a bunker and you can't tell whether he took gas and is going factory/starport or whether he did 1 rax FE. Then you just have to make sure you're playing safe against banshee cheese, which won't set you back too much. That's not much different than you'd have to do if you drone scout gas anyway (you can't tell whether he's going hellions with expand or banshee).
What precisely do you foresee as a problem?
EDIT: And all that is assuming you can get no information at all from overlords even while pressuring his front with roaches
On August 02 2011 22:04 Macpo wrote: I myself play the Sheth opening against helion opening: gas at 17, two queens, drones until 27 and then roach warren, 2 overlords and roaches until 44. I then find myself with around 7 or 8 roaches; but I feel still a bit uncomfortable with that. Here is why.
you have to push with these 8 or so roaches; otherwise 3 or 4 roaches would have been enough to defend. Yet I think there are two main issues:
1. do you push with all of them, or only a few? if only with a few (lets say 4 or 5), you probably won't achieve much pressure on terran expansion. if with all of them, there is the risk of a helion run by. you feel then really stupid, as you have 7/8 roaches and still get caught off guard by helions.
2. what if he is doing banshee? then you loose a lot: even if you enter his base and he has to defend... he will usually have something to defend, a bunker, sometimes a non sieged tank, couple of helions and scvs. so it's kind of hard to go inside his first base. With banshee, he will eventually kill all your roaches, which is a lot . To avoid that, would you recommend sacrifying an overlord or poking with zergling at least to scout his base when your roaches pop up to see if you should attack? 2bis. if he is still on one base, when you arrive with your roaches, should you try to attack ?
For these two reasons, I feel quite annoyed when I have to go out with my roaches. Any solutions to fix that would be welcomed!
two additional questions: 3. how do you evaluate your position to know if you are fine after the push (timing of terran expansion, quantity of losses on both sides, your number of drones, etc. what exactly?) 4. how do you transition to mid game? i.e. when do you take your three other gases? do you 3rd expand first, or lair tech first? do you speedling or lair tech first?
If anyone has answers to that, I'll feel really happy!!
Thanks
(EDIT: Master level by the way )
Top master zerg here
1. The point of this opener is to punish the greedy 1rax FE terrans and to effectively deal with hellions at the same time. If you push with 8-9 roaches and the terran players have 4-5 hellions out on the field, there's a good chance you can basically end the game or kill enough SCV to constitute the attack even if all of your roaches are wiped. The difference comes in that you can deal with his hellions as you produce additional roaches in base, since roaches hard counter hellions, while the terran player is forced to fight inefficiently (marines, hellions vs roaches? ).
2. Regarding banshees, you should be scouting to see his 2nd gas timing with you initial overlord scout. On bigger maps, your overlord might not be able to reach the terran's base, which is why the OP pointed out that a gas steal might be a good idea to prevent banshee play entirely.
3. Accessing the situation after the push should be the same as any other engagement/push. You look at the damage you caused (# of scv killed/# of units killed/ any structures/ denied expansion) and you weigh it against your own drone losses. In most cases, I imagine that the zerg player comes out ahead unless the terran player put multiple bunkers to prevent this specific push.
4. Transition to mid game is really wide open after this build :|. It's really situational because it's entirely dependent on the amount of damage you did and the amount of damage you took. I don't think there's one "right" answer to that question
On August 02 2011 22:04 Macpo wrote: I myself play the Sheth opening against helion opening: gas at 17, two queens, drones until 27 and then roach warren, 2 overlords and roaches until 44. I then find myself with around 7 or 8 roaches; but I feel still a bit uncomfortable with that. Here is why.
you have to push with these 8 or so roaches; otherwise 3 or 4 roaches would have been enough to defend. Yet I think there are two main issues:
1. do you push with all of them, or only a few? if only with a few (lets say 4 or 5), you probably won't achieve much pressure on terran expansion. if with all of them, there is the risk of a helion run by. you feel then really stupid, as you have 7/8 roaches and still get caught off guard by helions.
2. what if he is doing banshee? then you loose a lot: even if you enter his base and he has to defend... he will usually have something to defend, a bunker, sometimes a non sieged tank, couple of helions and scvs. so it's kind of hard to go inside his first base. With banshee, he will eventually kill all your roaches, which is a lot . To avoid that, would you recommend sacrifying an overlord or poking with zergling at least to scout his base when your roaches pop up to see if you should attack? 2bis. if he is still on one base, when you arrive with your roaches, should you try to attack ?
For these two reasons, I feel quite annoyed when I have to go out with my roaches. Any solutions to fix that would be welcomed!
two additional questions: 3. how do you evaluate your position to know if you are fine after the push (timing of terran expansion, quantity of losses on both sides, your number of drones, etc. what exactly?) 4. how do you transition to mid game? i.e. when do you take your three other gases? do you 3rd expand first, or lair tech first? do you speedling or lair tech first?
If anyone has answers to that, I'll feel really happy!!
Thanks
(EDIT: Master level by the way )
I honestly havent studied sheths build completely so I wont pretend to know the timings. But what you're describing sounds like it can be remedied easily. If you have 2-4 lings at the base of his ramp for example. At that point you can scout up with one of them while the roaches walk over. Banshees are easy to spot, usually a bunker and marines only. Every other opening that I would call "standard" right now, are easily pressured with roaches. The only thing you need to keep a heads up for his hellion run-bys, and drops. But chances are if the hellions going torward your base are a threat, he wont have much in terms of defense back home. Concerning how many roaches to push with; if you're gonna make roaches that early in the game, you at least want to posture with them. I send them all.
For your last concerns, A general rule of thumb is if you were able to do some damage with your roaches, you will be fine going into the mid game. The amount of damage will vary depending on how much you commit to the pressure. If you send 4-5 and kill 3 marines and 2 scvs, and all he has for tech is reactored hellions, then you're in good shape. (Extra credit for retaining all your roaches =P) A lot of how you proceed into the midgame depends a lot on how well the harass went, and what the terrans tech is, an expansion etc. All those conditions are unique to each game.
I will admit i'm doing a fair amount of theory crafting here myself. But if hellions remain as popular as they are currently, then roach builds are worth at least considering.
The amount of damage it can do depends on the amount of roaches you make. 8 roaches have some very serious damage potential, but correspondingly put you more behind if you fail to do significant damage. 5 roaches on the other hand have less damage potential, but you can start your lair immediately after the first 5 roaches if you'd like to. Your build also looks very interesting - I shall give it a fair shake.
EPT
. To avoid that, would you recommend sacrifying an overlord or poking with zergling at least to scout his base when your roaches pop up to see if you should attack? 
. Any solutions to fix that would be welcomed! 
).
