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Zerg versus Protoss Midgame guide - Fall of the First born
Alright, so my previous Zerg versus Protoss got a lot of critique from the community both for including balance whining and a lack of a real midgame explanation. This guide is meant to fill that large midgame hole and to learn from my mistakes of balance whining in guides. It was a valuable learning experience and I am thankful I have only gotten a relatively low amount of negativity for it. Let's just say that you'll stop being spiteful agains players and you will get a lot more admiration for certain figures in the community that don't get a lot of slack, like Incontrol, and stand in the fire heroicly.
I've been through a whole learning process in ZvP lately, mainly in my way of macroing. I used to rely on 2 base attacks to get by, and I switched over to 3 base style. The recent ZvP guide about Roach-Ling-Muta by decaf was also a large inspiration to this guide, and I'm almost certain that a Spire style is the best possible against Robo based 2 base from Protoss now.
This guide is about a rather common situation, where you are going 3 base against a FFE. The link is down here
http://raa-media.nl/blog/starcraft2/zvp-fall-of-first-born
I've also added a little bit about my style in the time before I got into 3 basing a lot, my trusted Baneling bust against Forge Fast Expanding. So here's an excerpt from that short bit:
Baneling bust against FFE This is one of those openings that is great for punishing fast teching off of a forge fast expand. It isn't stable against all kinds of builds but it's great to throw in every now and then. The build starts off with a hatch first, which seems like quite a passive build from Protoss' point of view. This ofcourse is one of thise assumptions that will kill you brutally as Protoss if you cut corners like skipping that second sentry. Build order
9 Overlord
14 Hatch
15 Spawning pool
17 Gas – Put 3 drones in gas when finished
18 Overlord
Drones until around 25 – Lings after that
Start Baneling nest when you have enough gas
Start second Extractor when starting Baneling nest – Put 3 drones on gas.
So what abou...Cannon rushes? Well here's the thing, if he does a cannon rush and you defend it with decent drone micro ( which you should have if you go for hatch first ) you can easily capitalize on the fact that his gateway and sentries are delayed. I've wrote a good bit about how to stop cannon rushes in my other ZvP guide: http://raa-media.nl/blog/starcraft2/zvp-aiurs-armageddon#fevscannonrushOnce you get speed and get the Baneling nest, you start the second gas and mine from both until you have 350 gas or so. You need 14 Banelings to kill off a Cybernetics core, which is the highest value target in this kind of rush. Not only will killing the Cybernetics core force him to rebuild it, it will stop him from making Sentries which are required to deal with Banelings and high amounts of Zerglings. If the Cybernetics core isn't in the wall you will want to go for the Forge and gateway. Make sure you hit between it to get the maximum efficiency. Both of these buildings have less health than the Cybernetics core, so you can lose a couple of Banelings and still be okay. Make sure you never show your high amount of lings to him. If that does happen it might startle him into making a second Sentry in which case you just jepardized your whole gameplan, well done  . Morph the Banelings near his base but out of his vision. Make sure that you keep a couple of lings out of his base to kill scouting probes. Once you are ready, move in with your lings before the Banelings and attack a building you don't want to blow up with Banelings to try and lure out a forcefield. The best possible time to attack is when warp gate finishes, so you can kill the cybercore before he can warp in Stalkers or Sentries. Which means he will be stuck on Zealots for a long long time, and you have Banelings to deal with those. Once Speedlings are in his base, you really shouldn't let him live and kill off anything you can while flooding in with more and more lings. You could just go for a macro game if you so desire, but your tech will be so very behind that you probably won't be able to defend against every option the Protoss has. Replays: http://www.mediafire.com/file/nqu7fr55rvplbmt/Blingbust.rar
I hope you can learn something from this article. GL HF & Thanks for reading
Edit: fixed the link, damn you T button!
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Another fantastic guide Chaos!
I'm guessing from your recent posts, and your neglect to mention it you aren't a big fan of Ling+Bling /w drop style mid-game? If you don't mind me asking, what's turned you away from it?
Playing at a low-mid Masters level I've been struggling to make it work, I'm not even sure if MorroW plays that style anymore, the only person I know of who uses it regularly (Asides from players like Leenock who do it in addition to Muta+Ling) would be Snute, if you've been watching any of his stream lately he's had a lot of success with it.
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Very nice guide, covering pretty much all the protoss strategies.
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Time for you to switch to Protoss, I'd like somebody writing stuff like this for us!
Looks really neat, gonna read it too!
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On November 30 2011 04:33 Pteppic wrote:
Another fantastic guide Chaos!
I'm guessing from your recent posts, and your neglect to mention it you aren't a big fan of Ling+Bling /w drop style mid-game? If you don't mind me asking, what's turned you away from it?
Playing at a low-mid Masters level I've been struggling to make it work, I'm not even sure if MorroW plays that style anymore, the only person I know of who uses it regularly (Asides from players like Leenock who do it in addition to Muta+Ling) would be Snute, if you've been watching any of his stream lately he's had a lot of success with it.
I've moved away from that style due to it being far too fragile for my liking.
Zerglings need to be well carapace upgraded for them to matter against Zealots and Sentries deal with them both very nicely. On top of that, Collosus builds completely wreck Ling+Bling builds due to them taking a lot of Baneling hits to die. Phoenixes deny drop play very nicely too, which is kind of the crutch of that build.
And Protosses have become much better at moving their probes away from +2 baneling drops, so they are, sadly, no longer a free win anymore  .
Because of it's inflexibility I moved over to a different style that has a solid base for dealing with all of Protoss' options, something that was severely lacking in my midgame before.
On November 30 2011 04:47 ToastieNL wrote:
Time for you to switch to Protoss, I'd like somebody writing stuff like this for us!
Looks really neat, gonna read it too!
I did switch to Protoss a while ago, but I didn't like any of the match ups except for PvP :/ The race feels too rigid in its reliance on doing overwhelming pushes rather than multipronged harass and counter attacks like Zerg and Terran. It's too boring for me, so I switched back to Zerg after about 30 games.
I'm not saying it's a bad race, just not my kind of race .
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Man, you really put some hard work in to your guides. It's great to see.
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this is actually a damn good guide on a damn solid style. very nice!
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Thanks! Between your upgrade tips in the "help me" thread and this guide I'm feeling more confident in ZvP these days.
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hehe i read "zvp midgame guide" and first thing I see is baneling busts xD
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GRAND OLD AMERICA16375 Posts
I have been stuck with my zvp. Thanks fpr the help!
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Awesome guide, and yeah, I was mislead by the baneling bust example in the OP too, haha...
I've always had, and always will have trouble with this matchup. Midgame toss is just so damn good, it feels like I win in the early game or I don't win at all.
Maybe I'll try playing with spires more to see if my luck changes. Thank you for this.
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On November 30 2011 05:47 Br3ezy wrote:
hehe i read "zvp midgame guide" and first thing I see is baneling busts xD
Haha yeah, it was kind of an odd choice to put it there, but it was the only bit in the article that displayed a strategy in a reasonably short space. And I really wanted to put a nice Baneling Bust strategy out there, so I took the chance here
To anyone wondering, there's actually a solid strategy in the link, not just a cheesy build XD
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baneling busts are only going to be effective on a few maps like metalopolis or xel naga where ffe is dangerous and cannons cant cover your walloff completely. usually 1 sentry is all protoss needs to hold this.
edit: lol completely missed the link to the guide. holy crap, nice guide
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Thanks for mentioning me in your guide
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I'm a bit confused...is the whole guide assuming protoss did forge expand? If not, what part is and what part isn't? Obviously you can't play the exact same if the protoss didn't forge expand.
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On November 30 2011 07:04 CtrlAltDefeat wrote:
I'm a bit confused...is the whole guide assuming protoss did forge expand? If not, what part is and what part isn't? Obviously you can't play the exact same if the protoss didn't forge expand.
Pretty much all of the guide assumes that the Protoss FFE's. I generally take my macro hatchery before my third if I am up against gateway openings because the timings come a little bit faster. I find Gateway openings to be very easy to punish in a lot of ways compared to quick FFE's, the only thing that gets more difficult is defending a well timed 6+ gateway push.
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An excellent guide. I only wish you posted it a couple days ago, I think it would have saved me a couple losses.
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Great Guide, Sir. Really appreciate the work you put into the development of your Guides. Imho its time for you to get blue 
Just a question considering the drone count: You said about 54 to 56 drones. Just to make things clear, although this question might seem stupid: You mean 3 base and 3 geysirs (with the aforementioned drone count) to support Roach/Ling production and defending a 2base push or pressure his 3rd and after that following your advice considering the different choices that P can make. (Robo, Twilight, etc. -> Mutas, Festors [Getting Geysir 4 to 6], Spines, getting a fourth etc. on our side as a reaction)
Edit: Just a little, tiny gameplan i made up in my mind, to make my point above clear, what steps you take and how you structure your approach. Correct me please, if i did understand something wrong:
1. Drone up to 54 and 56 on 3Base/1Macro-Hatch // Get 3 Geysirs (Although: Gas timings are "fluid" and reactionary considering your economy / opponent)
1b. Scout and stay safe while doing that -> Figure out what the opponent is doing
2. Build up a good Roach number to just stay alive / be safe -> Support with "Zergling flood" if P is pushing out
3. Follow up with the appropriate reaction to his build (i.e. 4th to 6th Geysir, Mutas, Infestors, 4th, Hive, etc. pp.)
And regarding a GW - Expand: The thing you adapt is takin' a macro hatch, instead of your early third, as i could read it out of your answer. Im just wondering what the best time is to take an actual third?! Ive got quite my problems with that, because i cant get a feel when to do it and when not. A really general question, but is there some rule of thumb like "If he pushes out and i defend, i can safely expand" or "Expand before he pushes, to overwhelm him with my production capability" ? The last argument would fit into the whole "ALWAYS stay one base ahead" - doctrine, which most Zergs follow. Whats your opinion on that point ? (Again, talking about GW - Expand only)
Again, thank you for your great work for the community !!
Greetz
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You've helped me so much with your other guides, ty!
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/9Z0nS.png)
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