I've been losing to forward 2 gate a lot. It's like 50 percent of the games I've played so far and every time I play against it I end up losing. I've tried pulling drones when the opponent pulls probes. I'm not sure whether to drone drill or just a move the drones with my lings. I've seen one tactic where you have a group of lings and drones threatening to cut off reinforcements and in one push you join the ling+drone group with the rest of your lings to kill off the zealots and probes.
I've studied Savior's counter to forward 2 gate. His execution of the micro seemed okay but the fact he got 2 drones and 1 pair of lings after his pool made him fall really behind in ling count. the game starts at 8 minutes.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uaxf90pp4siiy8t/AABogY3cD9zDQ9IvFjvp5_4Ma?dl=0 In the two reps enclosed the first time I hold it off because he brought no probes. I ended up underestimating his zealot count which is what usually happens and I lose to the big zealot attack. The 2nd game I just flubbed with the drone micro and they were going the wrong way. I wasn't sure what to do in this case.should I just attack move both the lings and drones and maybe pick off probes where I can? Any more examples of players holding off forward 2 gate are welcome.
Does anyone want to help me practice against forward 2 gate?
Send your initial lings out to pick off reinforcements and force him back to his main with the aggressive zealot's that are closet to your main, I forward 2gate every PvZ almost and that is how they stop me, that or with 9pool speedling. I feel like if you time it well enough though that you can get a sunken in time with just 12hatch 11pool and then a second sunken if needed and then there is nothing they can do. At that time you should have a substantial lead by default.
If you drone scout, you can see the 2 gate in time to reactively morph zerglings instead of drones. 9 pool, over pool, and 12 hatch can beat it.
Morph zerglings non stop, get sunken colonies as soon as possible, and micro well. Pick off probes, surround zealots, engage at smart times. If he isn't rushing in to you, don't feel like you have to engage him. Time is on your side. You produce faster, and you have sunken colonies on the way.
PM me if you want practice. My only demand is that we switch sides - so that both of us play as the Zerg and as the Protoss.
I assume with this "50% of games so far" that these games are on Fish. I strongly recommend playing 11 pool ZvP especially if you're playing against an unknown opponent on FS. It's important that you pay attention to probe scout timing and/or just drone scout at the appropriate time to know how to use your first 3 larvae. A nice safe rule of thumb is to just make 6 lings if you haven't scouted a forge FE and their probe scout is late, because most often Protosses pylon scout when making Forge and Gateway scout(10/12) or after 2nd Gateway scout if its 9/9 @ natural. As your expansion is finishing send 2/3 drones to ensure you get a sunken down (probe can deny sunks) You can make 2 sunkens and then cancel the one they attack to ensure one finishing.
As far as a followup once you defend, 3 hatch or even 2 hatch hydra is quite good as they have 2 gateways exposed and you can cut their production and force many cannons (and usually win the game outright if you defended the initial zealots efficiently). 2 hatch muta is also viable as long as you have an overlord in their main seeing that their tech will be sufficiently late for the mutas to end the game.
As far as a followup once you defend, 3 hatch or even 2 hatch hydra is quite good as they have 2 gateways exposed and you can cut their production and force many cannons (and usually win the game outright if you defended the initial zealots efficiently). 2 hatch muta is also viable as long as you have an overlord in their main seeing that their tech will be sufficiently late for the mutas to end the game.
Going for a hydra or muta attack at the expense of economy is risky, and gives a good player a chance to get back in to the game. If he correctly predicts what attack will come, and defends against it without defending against the other possible attacks that could have, but did not come, then he is even or ahead, and thus you have given up your advantage.
Instead, you should abuse that he has late gas by going for some thing that will punish it no matter how well he predicts you: Savior style 3 hatch.
That style is the reason that ZvP was Zerg favoured before 2007 - when people were still opening with 2 gate as a standard build order. It gets a spire and lurker aspect at the same time, and expands behind that. It forces the Protoss to get mutalisk defense, and observers. One lurker at your third, and one outside of his natural is enough to force observers. And if you see a lack of corsairs, punish it with mutalisks from your spire. (Otherwise, just use it for scourge, against corsairs and observers).
After a 2 gate opening, Protoss does not have enough gas to deal with this, letting you lurker contain him before observers are out (or punish him with mutalisks, if he skipped corsairs). You can even snipe observers with scourge to contain him for a little longer.
Meanwhile, you are saturating a third base and getting ahead. Then, when he finally has accumulated enough gas to deal with the mutalisk threat and break out of the lurker contain, you crush him with your superior three base economy with mass hydra ling lurker. Or, you take a fourth, and turtle to hive with sunkens, spores, and lurkers.
Although you will beat many protoss users, especially at lower levels, with the contain itself, make sure that you don't over commit to your contain. Know when to abandon it. Don't bleed yourself dry trying to keep it up while he picks off units. It's just there to buy time.
As far as a followup once you defend, 3 hatch or even 2 hatch hydra is quite good as they have 2 gateways exposed and you can cut their production and force many cannons (and usually win the game outright if you defended the initial zealots efficiently). 2 hatch muta is also viable as long as you have an overlord in their main seeing that their tech will be sufficiently late for the mutas to end the game.
Going for a hydra or muta attack at the expense of economy is risky, and gives a good player a chance to get back in to the game. If he correctly predicts what attack will come, and defends against it without defending against the other possible attacks that could have, but did not come, then he is even or ahead, and thus you have given up your advantage.
Instead, you should abuse that he has late gas by going for some thing that will punish it no matter how well he predicts you: Savior style 3 hatch.
That style is the reason that ZvP was Zerg favoured before 2007 - when people were still opening with 2 gate as a standard build order. It gets a spire and lurker aspect at the same time, and expands behind that. It forces the Protoss to get mutalisk defense, and observers. One lurker at your third, and one outside of his natural is enough to force observers. And if you see a lack of corsairs, punish it with mutalisks from your spire. (Otherwise, just use it for scourge, against corsairs and observers).
After a 2 gate opening, Protoss does not have enough gas to deal with this, letting you lurker contain him before observers are out (or punish him with mutalisks, if he skipped corsairs). You can even snipe observers with scourge to contain him for a little longer.
Meanwhile, you are saturating a third base and getting ahead. Then, when he finally has accumulated enough gas to deal with the mutalisk threat and break out of the lurker contain, you crush him with your superior three base economy with mass hydra ling lurker. Or, you take a fourth, and turtle to hive with sunkens, spores, and lurkers.
Although you will beat many protoss users, especially at lower levels, with the contain itself, make sure that you don't over commit to your contain. Know when to abandon it. Don't bleed yourself dry trying to keep it up while he picks off units. It's just there to buy time.
Never said anything about sacrificing your econ o.o. You should pretty much always go hydra followup vs gates @ natural because you get 2 free gateways assuming they were left with low zealot count after being agressive. If they just played defensively/didnt lose many zealots and expanded then of course going lurker first + spire and take 3rd is much more reasonable. But if they are low on army to begin with its better to be aggressive, at least kill the gateways. 3rd hatch>gas>den>start speed or range>drone until 18 drones on minerals>start hydra production puts you in a position to win immediately with still enough drones to lair and take 3rd if you see they can defend full hydra production.
You get the gateways with a lurker follow up, too, but it costs less larvae, giving you a stronger economy.
But you get the gateways earlier with hydralisks. So if you are comfortable with going a hydralisk style vs 2 gate follow ups, then vs gateways at the natural, it's actually not a bad idea. I think, anyway. I never played hydralisk styles vs 1 base P.
The Savior style was so good and so easy that I was never forced to evolve vs 2 gate.
i think what can be good is if the zerg sacs his nat, sunks the main then uses the lings he produces to either cut reinforcements, kill the pylon powering the gateways or counter the mineral line depending on which option seems like the best
On February 10 2015 09:04 castleeMg wrote: i think what can be good is if the zerg sacs his nat, sunks the main then uses the lings he produces to either cut reinforcements, kill the pylon powering the gateways or counter the mineral line depending on which option seems like the best
I agree, if you are in close spawns vs 9/9 gates its often better to cancel nat if the first zealots + probe are there before hatch is done. Of course this depends on zerg build. Unpowering the gates is really really annoying for the P. If you 1 sunk @ main + 2nd hatch they will probably just block your ramp. Look for opportunity to drone drill ramp + speedling to break it and then 3rd hatch at natural. Only thing I'd say is don't do this if you don't have strong multitask because you have to keep most of your attention on your backstabbing lings for it to be worth it.
On February 09 2015 11:04 vOdToasT wrote: If you drone scout, you can see the 2 gate in time to reactively morph zerglings instead of drones. 9 pool, over pool, and 12 hatch can beat it.
Morph zerglings non stop, get sunken colonies as soon as possible, and micro well. Pick off probes, surround zealots, engage at smart times. If he isn't rushing in to you, don't feel like you have to engage him. Time is on your side. You produce faster, and you have sunken colonies on the way.
PM me if you want practice. My only demand is that we switch sides - so that both of us play as the Zerg and as the Protoss.
On February 09 2015 11:04 vOdToasT wrote: If you drone scout, you can see the 2 gate in time to reactively morph zerglings instead of drones. 9 pool, over pool, and 12 hatch can beat it.
Morph zerglings non stop, get sunken colonies as soon as possible, and micro well. Pick off probes, surround zealots, engage at smart times. If he isn't rushing in to you, don't feel like you have to engage him. Time is on your side. You produce faster, and you have sunken colonies on the way.
PM me if you want practice. My only demand is that we switch sides - so that both of us play as the Zerg and as the Protoss.
On February 11 2015 08:50 Xeln4g4 wrote: 2 gate PvZ is losing strategy for P unless there is HUGE skill different in favor of P
?? this is pretty wrong.. proxy 9/9 gate is really strong if an unsuspecting zerg goes 12 hatch, in fact its how weaker protoss players can take out stronger zerg players quickly
I don't think you can win a better zerg with that, maybe an even skill level. Obviously 99 gate vs some kind of 12 hath on relatively close position (or middle) can be hard for zerg, but can be defended if you're a "better player". Just go for 3 sunken + mass ling to counter that when playing 12 hath - you cancel the dying / unnecessary sunkens.
When playing early pools like 9 pool/9 pool speed/overpool take your 6 lings to fight reinforcements or threat a backstab, try to snipe probes and single zealots while making more lings and trying to put 1-2 sunkens.
The worst choice is to go for 11/12 pool, as this will give you relatively delayed lings, no larvas and slow hatchery to put sunkens. 12 pool should only be combined with quick gas, as it won't give you any advantage vs nexus 1st expand (canons will warp in time) and you'll still be exposed to 99 gate from main/front/middle.
Last thing that can also work is to throw gas as soon as you realize that some zealot rush is coming from the map, suken at main, cancel the hath after taking some dmg and harras the probe line for next 5 minutes with speed lings. If you're getting blocked on the ramp, you can go for lair or just main hydra while trying to sneak the drone on the map for a hath. Using 6-8 speedlings on the map is enough to deny single zealots and put pressure on the expansion / main as long as you don't lose them.
On February 11 2015 08:50 Xeln4g4 wrote: 2 gate PvZ is losing strategy for P unless there is HUGE skill different in favor of P
I agree. It's not an automatic loss, but it does turn the game in to an uphill struggle against a Zerg who is good against 2 gate - against the zealots themselves, and the follow ups.
But, if the Zerg is greedy and does not drone scout, then the Protoss can hide his zealots, and then strike with three of them after the Zerg made six zerglings and then drones. I've seen Larva and other good ZvP users lose to it, and I lost to it myself. Because of the 2 gate threat, I always drone scouted. There are too many peruvians looking for an easy win.
Also, if the Zerg user is not good against the 2 gate style, post zealot aggression, then it's a very strong build order. It's similar to how 1 base Terran openings like fast wraiths are good against Zergs who don't know how to deal with it.
On February 12 2015 19:05 kogeT wrote: That's why what you should do when playing e.g overpool is to keep 2~ larvas until you scout an actual FE and hath drones / lings accordingly.
For example, make 2-4 lings, scout with 2, and start hathing 4 more lings or 2 drones.
You still have to drone scout on 4 player maps, or you'll have to wait for far too long
As above, aggressive with first 6 lings to drive toss back.
The key is to morph two sunken colonies in your nat. Place them a part from each other, but the location doesn't matter, just get them started! The zealots can just about take one down (you can cancel it if they get it super fast), but they cannot get the second too. And if they do try to attack a colony, make sure your control is good enough to take those free hits. These are the only two drones that you should pull.
But it is one of those BOs where it comes down to micro and you can lose the game in a short window of poor control. It's easier for the toss at lower levels but at higher levels, I give the advantage to zergs. Movie sometimes does this strategy, perhaps try to find some of his ex-Kespa vods.
At least with a lot of practice you will get better. It reminds me of my days on HBR getting destroyed by toss proxy gates until my marine control improved. Ah, such frustrating days Good luck!
On February 12 2015 19:05 kogeT wrote: That's why what you should do when playing e.g overpool is to keep 2~ larvas until you scout an actual FE and hath drones / lings accordingly.
For example, make 2-4 lings, scout with 2, and start hathing 4 more lings or 2 drones.
You still have to drone scout on 4 player maps, or you'll have to wait for far too long
Not at all. You won't have to extend the waiting beyond the point where your hatchery will have 3 larvas. You'll check all the locations on 4 players map before the 3rd larva appears, meaning not so much of a macro loss.
On February 12 2015 19:05 kogeT wrote: That's why what you should do when playing e.g overpool is to keep 2~ larvas until you scout an actual FE and hath drones / lings accordingly.
For example, make 2-4 lings, scout with 2, and start hathing 4 more lings or 2 drones.
You still have to drone scout on 4 player maps, or you'll have to wait for far too long
Not at all. You won't have to extend the waiting beyond the point where your hatchery will have 3 larvas. You'll check all the locations on 4 players map before the 3rd larva appears, meaning not so much of a macro loss.
I would rather scout with a drone than delay production until I have three larvae