EPT[Q] Hive timing in zvp
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knightpraetor
United States180 Posts
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Conversion
United States3308 Posts
if you want to go turtle style with sunks + lurkling, you should get your hive faster along with your fast 4th if you want to go map control with hydralurkling + muta, you generally stay toe to toe with the toss and try to deny his third. imo hive timing can come whenever here this is how i play my ZvP i can be totally wrong though so don't take my word for it | ||
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LxRogue
United States1415 Posts
Making ultras off 3 gas isn't usually advisable, and I don't think most players are good enough to pull off quick defilers ZvP. You could argue that the adrenal upgrade alone is worth making a fast hive, but I think it's more economical to go for a quick double evo and stay on lair for a bit longer. | ||
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Rio
Vietnam598 Posts
Fast Hive, dont make any gas unit Go pure ultra Massive simcity and sunkenl, defend 4 gas | ||
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knightpraetor
United States180 Posts
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GHOSTCLAW
United States17042 Posts
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knightpraetor
United States180 Posts
 was up so much..but putting 2000 in the bank instead of units after a major battle is going to be gg | ||
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FyRe_DragOn
Canada2053 Posts
I am going to write quite a lot of stuff on this subject, so plz bear with me if you want to be enlightened. sO, first off - there are two main playstyles to be aware of fast hive turtle style, and mass lair map control style. Both styles need to secure 4gases by the time ultralisks come into play. Fast hive style allows this to happen by securing the naturals of two bases. Mass lair allows this to happen by securing one or more central locations (by having a lurker field there) linking to several bases at once, and a mobile hydralisk army ready to intercept any protoss attacks, backed up by the aforementioned lurker field. WIth fast hive, the standard build, or at least the build I use most often, would be to get queens nest along with a second evolution chamber as soon as 1+ carapace is done (assuming a similarly standard start with 3hatch spire into 5hatch, and then lurkers instead of hydralisks, and carapace instead of missile. This works against standard play from the protoss (aka not a ton of corsairs). If the protoss takes a quick 3rd, i would take a quick 4th and pump drones, while not delaying hive tech. If the protoss stays on 2base and pressures me, I would make more defense, and less drones, while not delaying hive tech. Sometimes this means that I get to hive tech while still on 3bases. This is perfectly fine, as long as the protoss is also economically behind due to his similar lack of expansions - cracklings and defilers will allow me to both defend myself and harass the opponent until get my 4th running fully. If the protoss decides to go for a heavy sair style of play however, I would transition into more of the second style of play, mass lair. Instead of getting queens nest I would get a third evolution chamber, and instead of hive i would get hydralisk upgrades. This would mean im defended from the corsair play, and can transition into hive (by getting a queens nest) as soon as all my bases are secure. Or, I could continue delaying queens nest and hive until I got a 4th base up, and opt for center map control, although with the longer distance between the two naturals sometimes this isnt a good idea, so Id base it on the individual situation. With mass lair, none of those transitions are needed, because the lair playstyle works well against both standard ground toss armies,and sair heavy aerial play. With this style, my own upgrades and base number would be greater determining factors than the opponents unit combination, when determining hive timing. Mass lair play uses mass hydralisks, so missile upgrade is synergetic with mass lair play. However, missile upgrade is not synergetic with hive play. So, in order to transition properly to hive play from mass lair play, melee and carapace upgrades are needed. I would want to have at least 1-1 upgrades in melee and carapace before using cracklings in force, so before building a queens nest I would have at least two evolution chambers, two of which are upgrading melee and carapace. If I wanted to continue upgrading my hydralisks as well with a 3rd evolution chamber, my queens nest would be slowed in order to accommodate the extra minerals and gas spent, without slowing my hydra/lurker production. Aside from uprades, I also would not build my queens nest until I put down a hatchery at a 4th base location. I would want to have my 4th base up and running by the time i build/upgrade my hive tech structures, so that again, the extra gas doesnt cut into my unit production, and i can maintain map control. Ok, so now that ive talked about mass lair vs fast hive, im going to talk about how it applies to the bisu vs hyun game. In general, for mass lair play, close expansion positions are beneficial for zerg, while with fast hive play, taking a second natural+main across the map works better. Mass lair style play involves the use of many hydralisks, which work best in large groups to make the best use of their range through focus fire, and require some space to storm dodge. With fast hive play you use lings instead, which are very fast + melee units, so they are great at reinforcing and do the most damage while attacking from multiple directions, surrounding the enemy. The map aztec, imo supports fast hive style much more than it supports mass lair play, ESPECIALLY on the positions that hyun got in his game against bisu. ![[image loading]](http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/3905/map1khv.jpg) In the pic above, I put hyun as red and bisu as blue. X's are where they expanded, and the arrows represent the paths their units have to take in order to attack in bisus case, or defend in hyuns case. As you can see, there really isnt a good area to put a bunch of lurkers that would protect all of hyuns bases. The large middle area, combined with the long travel distance between hyuns 2 base clusters would mean that hyuns forces would be spread extremely thin in the center. (this problem was compounded by the fact that hyun was probe blocked early on and took his 2nd main first, so had an even farther distance to travel.) Bisu could, and did attack a portion of hyuns forces with the majority of his own constantly in the game. Because the comparatively slow speed of hydralisks and lurkers and their shittiness in general in small fights, bisu was able to do plenty of damage without repercussion. He used his units more efficiently than hyun. In my opinion, hyun should have turtled a lot more and done the fast hive style i summarized earlier, so that the map worked in his favor instead of against it. Or even a turtling drop lair style, with drop upgrade instead of fast hive. Hyun dropped late in the game, after hed already lost, but bisu still had a bit of trouble cleaning it up, because of the long travel distance over the map for bisus army compared to the small distance of hyuns overlords to bisus main. Hyun could also have dropped bisus 3rd and 4th from his 2nd main like he did at the end, although if hyun had turtled earlier instead of trying to gain map control it would have been much more powerful and probably taken out at least one of bisus bases. So in conclusion, hyun lost not because he didnt have hive, but because he didnt cater his play style to use the map to his advantage while getting hive (or drop and then hive). Bisus played the map much better, and so he won convincingly even though he was a bit sloppy at some parts. edit* fuck part of my map got cut off u can still see everything important though | ||
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DarkSaieden
South Africa254 Posts
1. Move the nearest group(s) from the ball away. This buys you time, and possibly draws his army out further, and hopefully separates his composition. 2. a) Move the other group into (a better) position OR b) attack-move all into ball right away (this is when you have a good surround/flank/position, but dont sacrifice good timing over "perfect" position). 3. If your army at the front of the ball is engaged, you may have to micro (usually the case with me). Just move the engaged units back. 4. Repeat above steps till you choose 2b. After this, repeatedly move hydras away from zealots (to get out of goon, storm range) and focus-fire down as many gas units as possible. Also, when getting into position, once you have a good enough idea of his unit comp (or before even) use and look the minimap! Your main screen is useless when it comes to judging how good your overall position is. | ||
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knightpraetor
United States180 Posts
"1. Move the nearest group(s) from the ball away. This buys you time, and possibly draws his army out further, and hopefully separates his composition." but yeah, i'll work on it. Also fyredragon thanks for the help. I realize now that i'm just making it hard on myself by trying to do turtle style with missile + hydra early anyways...so i basically mesh the two styles and take the far natural because i can never manage to secure a 4th with my lurker fields. I feel like mass lurkers just die to goons without massive ling support, yet to get that mass ling support denies my 4th so long. Most likely I should be denying protoss's 3rd with my lair army longer, but I have weak control. let's take HBR as an example. I feel like building a lurker field against the protoss army on maps like heartbreak is near invincible until you want to take a 4th gas..if i just want the min only it's easy enough to extend the lurker field...but if i want the far gas, then i need quite a few lurkers (i'm assuming it is possible to hold the toss army with half your lurkers + the mobile hydra force..i hope i'm not expected to dance and burrow lurkers the whole game). So by the time I can take the 4th gas I feel like toss will just expand twice and have 4 gas of his own.. If i have lurker-hydra set up in defense, how do i deny his expos? am i supposed to have the ling/hydra deny it? or am i supposed to just grab hive and not worry about toss being on equal expos to mine | ||
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FyRe_DragOn
Canada2053 Posts
You dont have to keep burrowing and unburrowing lurkers, just set a few up along the ridge, and a few along beside your natural and keep the rest with your hydra mass in between. The toss will not have expanded to 5bases before you unless you are doing something really wrong with your macro. You should be able to secure all 5 bases before toss attemps even a 4th at the mineral only. If you want to deny expos using the mass lair style, mutalisks are helpful in attacking (to reduce the amount of defensive storms he can cast), or you can harass with a few lings, or just go with your hydra/lurker if you find an advantageous position - one that allows you to set up lurkers in between his army and his base, so that in order to save his base he must attack into your lurkers. You dont have to deny expos though if you dont feel comfortable in attacking until hive, just keep ahead of of him in expansions while you tech. It is up to the protoss to attack you to delay your macro, not the other way around. Zerg can macro drones and hatcheries much faster than toss can put down new bases, so if neither of you attack until the late game, you should be at an advantage. | ||
Harem
United States11390 Posts
On October 26 2010 01:00 knightpraetor wrote: let's take HBR as an example. I feel like building a lurker field against the protoss army on maps like heartbreak is near invincible until you want to take a 4th gas..if i just want the min only it's easy enough to extend the lurker field...but if i want the far gas, then i need quite a few lurkers (i'm assuming it is possible to hold the toss army with half your lurkers + the mobile hydra force..i hope i'm not expected to dance and burrow lurkers the whole game). So by the time I can take the 4th gas I feel like toss will just expand twice and have 4 gas of his own.. If i have lurker-hydra set up in defense, how do i deny his expos? am i supposed to have the ling/hydra deny it? or am i supposed to just grab hive and not worry about toss being on equal expos to mine It sounds like you aren't utilizing the power of zerglings on this map. They are incredibly good at running around protoss army and stopping expos from going up. Also, if P is expanding like that then they really can't defend their new expos and main at same time which makes drops incredibly strong. (unless they make like twenty million cannons with templars) ((also buys enough time for your 4th gas to be running)) This also opens up swarm backstabs to expos depending on how P responds to the drop ie he tries to counter or defend main so you take down his new expos. Either way, once plague/swarm is done, you should be able to wear him down with crackling/hydra/lurk and eventually ultra with your superior macro at this point as he is probably still on 3gas as he hasn't gotten the corner gas base running or it just started. Also, note that once you clear his main of gateways, he can only really rebuild them near his minonly. post replays please | ||
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knightpraetor
United States180 Posts
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