Hello Ladies and Gentlemen of Team Liquid, it is a great pleasure to present my newest strategy guide on Zerg vs Protoss and I'd like to thank you all for viewing!
It is with great caution and respect that I approach writing a strategy guide focusing on the style Stephano uses against Protoss who FFE. I approach this topic with caution because it is in no way new: it has been covered numerous times in detailed guides, team liquid discussions, and even Day9 Daily #388 . I approach with respect because Stephano is one of the most successful and creative professional Zerg players to date, and I do not assert that I know everything about his style or thought-processes. However, in studying Stephano's stream, using his builds in ladder, and teaching his style to students, I have developed insights into learning and improving with this style – and that's what I aim to share with you today.
Simply put, you must mark your progress if you want to improve the efficiency of your practice! Therefore, I will only be briefly analyzing Stephanos games and will instead focus on a step-by-step process of setting detailed timings and macro benchmarks to help players grasp the key components of this style, improving their timings, speed, and execution along the way. I define a macro benchmark as an interval in the game where you count any macro-related elements (Workers, Bases, Queens, Tumors, Upgrades, etc.) The primary goal of this guide is to help you max out at the 12 Minute Mark by securing an optimal 3 base economy by the 8 Minute Benchmark:
60 Drones (16 Mineral Drones x 3 Bases = 48, 3 Gas Drones x 4 Gas = 12. 12 + 48 = 60)
This economy is sufficient to not only max-out with decent upgrades by the 12 minute mark, but also continuously trade armies and reinforce to ensure protoss never gets that critical third base.
Note: This information is old news and the timings do differ slightly from game to game. But for those who aren't familiar with Stephano's ZvP timings, this is a good place to start. If you have dual monitors, these timings should be copied and pasted in a notepad/word document so that you can read them while you play. If, like me, you don't have dual monitors, you can kick it old school with a pen and paper until committed to memory:
3:15-3:45 First expansion hatchery begins If you're lucky, you can start the hatchery on 16 supply before your 2nd overlord. Usually expansion is taken at natural, occasionally you can take it at the 3rd base location if your natural is blocked with probe or pylon.
4:00-5:00 Second expansion hatchery begins Can take 3rd right after the natural (~4min, 20-22 supply) Can take 3rd after first inject is used on drones (~4min, 28-30 supply)
6:00 Double Gas Geysers This can be delayed slightly, but 6 minutes is an effective general timing to start piling up gas for lair, ling speed, roaches.
7:00 Roach Warren and Evolution Chamber Again this can be delayed slightly, but it's a safe/standard timing to have roaches in time to hold 6-7 gate timings, zealot warp-ins, stargate pressure.
7:20 Lair and 3rd Gas Geyser First hundred gas generally goes into lair for roach speed and continuous upgrades. 3rd geyser needed to afford upgrades and roaches. Second hundred gas goes to zergling speed.
8:15 Roach Production and 4th Gas Geyser Start Roach Production to be used defensively in event of pressure. Begin +1 Roach Weapons.
9:00-10:00 Roaches, Speed, 4th Base (~60-65 Drones) Continue producing roaches Start the speed upgrade Zergling speed is done – can mix in zergling production if pressured. Begin a 4th base around 9:45/10:00
10:30-11:00 Roach/Ling Aggression with +1 (No additional gas) You should have a large army of roaches with +1 and speed completed or nearly so. Deny 3rd base, pressure protoss natural (kill units, cyber core, force him to use Force Field) Note: This is a critical window to do damage.
12:00+ Start a Macro Hatch and Max Out (Assuming minimal army casualties) Constantly pressure with Roach/Ling to deny a 3rd base Multi-Pronged attacks (Protoss natural/3rd if they have it) With Protoss on the defensive, trade armies knowing you can out-produce a 2base Protoss before his army reaches your base. Continue Roach Upgrades
Here is an example game casted by HDStarcraft. Notice there are subtle difference, but all the steps remain the same:
Note: The opening build typically follows the basic timings outlined above, but there are subtle variations between games, such as opening 14 or 15pool, getting the expansion before or after the queen/zerglings, etc. This build order is not universal in all Stephano games, but it serves as a basic structural guideline:
15Pool
16Overlord (Send a drone down to expansion, don't let probe wall your ramp with pylons)
16-18 First Queen
18-20 Zerglings
20 Hatchery (Natural Expansion)
19-21 Drones
21 Hatchery (Third Base)
20-22 Queen
22 Overlord
22-29 Drones (Optional: Produce a few zerglings)
29-31 Queen
31 Overlord
31-42 Drones (Optional: Produce a few zerglings)
42 Overlord
42 Double Gas
40-44 Drones
44 Overlord
44-54 Drones
54 Roach Warren/Evolution Chamber
52-58 Drones
58 Overlord
58-70 Drones, 4th Queen
70 Lair
70 3rd Gas, Overlords (Almost impossible to make too many overlords)
70-90 Roaches, 4th Gas, +1 Missile Attacks (Optional: Produce Zerglings)
90-110 Roaches and Roach speed (Optional: Produce Zerglings)
Note taking is absolutely essential to SC2 improvement. On the topic of taking detailed SC2 notes, QxC stated in an MLG interview that “it's the people who are the best that are winning today, but it's the people who improve the fastest that win tomorrow.” It is my firm belief that any player who does not keep a StarCraft II notebook is at a severe disadvantage compared to those who do.
So often people assume that queuing up more ladder games leads to faster improvement, or as WhiteRa puts it: “More gg, more skill!” While it is true that practicing more will help you get better, it is perhaps more important to ensure that your practice time is as effective as possible. This is why the first thing I do when coaching a new student is advise them to “Open a word file or get a pen and paper...you're going to need it!”
Remember: you MUST mark your progress if you want to improve the efficiency of your practice! Therefore to learn and perfect Stephano's ZvP style, I encourage you to make a total of eight detailed benchmarks, analyzing every minute between 5:00 and 12:00. This will help you assess your current strengths and pinpoint exactly when and where you're deviating from the build. To analyze your games so close might seem a little excessive at first, however it is the most effective way to pinpoint your mistakes and improve your note taking skills.
For the Stephano-Style, here are benchmarks you can aim for:
Note: These benchmarks are estimations that you can compare to your own timings. The most important benchmark is the 8:00 Mark, where you've reached peak 3 base saturation and can begin producing Roaches and Zerglings.
Players frequently overlook the importance economy management. From the opening stages, it's really important to keep optimal saturation with early-game drone micro to ensure mineral economy has every advantage.
As the game progresses, you'll see Stephano and other pros keep 16 drones mining in the main and then rally additional drones to their expansions (even long-distance mining a little). The ultimate goal is to have 2 drones mining per mineral patch on each base, while avoiding single-mining or triple-mining any mineral patches – keep this in mind when you're taking drones off your mineral line to build structures, you want to avoid having only 15 or 14 drones mining a base.
The key to three base economy is 60 drones mining efficiently: 48 Drones mining minerals on your 3 bases, 12 drones mining gas in the 4 geysers. Once you reach this level of saturation, 3 hatcheries with 3 queens is not enough production. Even with perfect injects, you need a 4th base or a macro hatch (And, eventually, both!)
Here are a few tips:
For general purposes, take all 6 drones and right click either patch 3 or 6. Then select 3 while they're on the way and right click the other patch.
Next, rally additional drones to mineral patches that aren't being mined yet. If you forgot and rallied to the bottom patch, for example, your drone would first go to that patch, then “bounce” off and go to one of the top two patches. Earn a few extra mining seconds by rallying to patches that aren't being mined.
One patch left that isn't mined, rally to that one.
Now that you have 1 drone on each mineral patch, it's time to double-mine the closer patches. Make sure your drones “Stick” to the patches you want them to go to. What often happens is the drone you rally will get there at the same time as the drone that is already mining, causing one of them to “Bounce”. You can avoid this by repetitively right clicking the patch with both drones (or the one that wants to bounce)
Again, we're rallying to those closer patches
Uh oh one drone wants to bounce, continuously right click until it “sticks”
This is what 16 drone saturation looks like, notice no drones are single or triple mining any patches. Always double-mine!
Once you reach 16 drone saturation, you can rally your hatchery to your expansion.
Stephano vs Loco (Game1): http://www.twitch.tv/mstephano/b/310164883 Game begins at 45:45 Stephano opens 11Overpool to put on early ling pressure, but still keeps the standard timings of his mass roach/ling style the same. Loco attempts to go Sentry/Immortal while taking a fast 3rd base. Maxed by 12min, Stephano denies the 3rd and continously reinforces his push to end the game.
Game 2 vs Loco(Game2): Game begins immediately after previous game. Loco uses Dts to pressure, but since the Lair is early enough, Stephano’s overseers keep his 3rd alive (Long enough, anyway). Again, 12min max roach denies the protoss 3rd base. Knowing the protoss is on two base and can’t match production, Stephano repetitively assaults Loco’s 2base sentry/immortal/stalker defense. By 15 min Stephano maxes again, denies the 3rd base, and busts the front. Note the multi-pronged aggression in the protoss main, natural, and third base to ensure protoss cannot keep a 3rd base or build the “critical” stalker/immortal/sentry ball.
Stephano vs NMxMomo http://www.twitch.tv/mstephano/b/311758713 Game begins 57:00 This game goes similarly – Protoss tries early zealot pressure but is shut down by queens and slowlings. Then, the mid-game timing attack is shut down by 8min roach/ling. The mass roach/ling contains the 2base protoss. Stephano mixes it up by incorporating overlord drop with his mass roach/ling style, which is an interesting way to approach to apply even more pressure to ensure protoss cannot secure three bases.
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Poll: Help me choose a topic for my next guide...
DRG ZvT - The 8:40 Roach/Ling/Baneling "All-In or Is it?" (149)
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(Vote): LiquidZenio's ZvP 7 Minute 3-Hatch Ling/Baneling All-In (Vote): Mid-Late Multi-Prong Overlord Drops in ZvP (with reference to Stephano and other pros) (Vote): DRG ZvT - The 8:40 Roach/Ling/Baneling "All-In or Is it?" (Vote): Other: A better option (Comment suggestions) (Vote): None, damnit. How many times do we have to tell you to stop?
Once again, I'd like to thank you all for reading and commenting. I look forward to your questions and wish you the best of luck in your games.
Note: Morrow's response is in bold, other comments that he responds to are italicized. Visit Page 14 of comments to view:
i think this "build order" is just an example of what happens if you let zerg drone to the exact amounts and then only pump units
its obvious zerg will be in a great shape and has a silly amounts of units if he makes pure drones => pure units
if ur a toss and have trouble against zerg just getting way ahead in economy and then just runs u over with sick amounts of units. try manipulating his drone unit balance while taking a 3rd base. the more ur able to make zerg go unit,drone,unit drone etc the slower he will reach the 200 food mark.
a standard build you can do is 3 zealot pressure first from ur initial gateway and then 4gate (8:00minute) to force out a ton of units out of zerg before he gets the drone count he wants to. and then take ur 3rd base without actually ever losing or killing too many units. just being in zergs face gives him enough of a threat to build units when he doesnt want to
if u do this correctly you should be able to hold 3base rather easily
it should be obvious to everyone whos familiar with zerg at this point that if zerg makes only drones then only units his army will outnumber the other 2 races very heavily
stephano has great success because mostly tosses in eu are bad in general but also they either go for a 2base attack, and really attacks (and ofcourse that fails cause stephano only makes units at that point to respond) or they just sit passively and let him drone how he wants and then they take 3base and are clueless why they cant defend it.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
On April 25 2012 01:31 Excludos wrote: I don't think you're being entierly fair here. You're pretty much just saying every single protoss player is bad. Putting pressure on the zerg is nothing new in PvZ. Everyone has experimented with all kinds of different pressure, and some have been successful for a while (like +1 4gate zealots with either voidrays or DTs). But in the end zerg manages to figure it out and stop it easily.
The reason most tosses these days goes for a 2base allin attack is because thats what they're having most success with, not because they've never tried anything else.
yes. ofcourse zergs figure out how to stop it and so on. the point is your making units and showing them as aggression to the zerg (units that you would already need to defend ur 3rd anyway, so your basically investing nothing into your attack) while zerg has to respond by investing into things other than drones, which makes his eventual mass attack with roaches or whatever on you much much easier to defend
the point im trying to make is you dont need to do damage such as killing stuff, your damage is by forcing him to make units before he gets the critical amount of drones so early that he can just make units for the rest of the games, attack and kill you
all this (that i said) rather than just throwing down your nexus and dont show any signs of aggression to the zerg is the best way to go about securing your 3rd.
so if you 4gate zealot, if you force 8 roaches and 12 lings on the production tab, if you then go onto losing 7-9 gateway units while "forcing zerg units", then it doesnt pay off cause you lost a bunch of units. your not really forcing zerg to make units if he manages to kill your stuff in the process. the point is to show it and force units without actually losing units.
so if you have trouble defend against zergs who max out on 48 drones on minerals and 15 drones mining (63 drones in total) then you need to force him to make units before he gets to 63 drones
my suggestion to tosses who want to learn how to defend 3base toss is to actually practice a ton and ton of different 2base allins and learn exactly the drone count zerg needs to defend the different 2base allins you do. then make similar macro oriented builds where you display the same threats to the zergs eye (so he will think its that allin) but instead back off and take ur 3rd.
fake impressions and forcing zergs unit/drone balance is a very complicated thing and it takes alot of practice and knowledge about the matchup to do right
ill say a rather standard way to do it safely but still very fast and solid. go for the 4gate +1 stargate (your stargate should go down at 6:20, gates at 7:00 and your first 4 zealot warpin at 8:10~), then with your next 400 minerals put down your 3rd nexus and make a robo, sentries (at home). the 4 zealots should be warped in as close as possible to their 3rd (normally right outside the creep) robo finishes and try get out the observer asap and 3 immortals and 3 phoenixes. add a few gates to your 3rd base and a cannon if u like.
so now you should be on 7gates and have about 8 sentries and 3 immortals (also a ton of stalkers), not to mention the voidray and the 3 phoenixes that you must have kept alive. you forced alot of units before he got to his 63 drones with and u also forced 3 spores and a bunch of extra queens)
there is no way for zerg to max out that fast on roaches and there is really no timing window where he should be able to kill you. this is just 1 example build how to get ur 3rd up, but there is over 10 different ways.
just focus on learning the standard basics of forcing zerg to make units without you losing units at the same time ur taking a 3rd and youll be more than fine
and to emphasis on what you said that they have more success killing zerg with 2base than securing 3base is because of what i talked about. the zerg plays too greedy early on and dies to 2base, if he doesnt die then he gets an advantage which he uses to hit a timing to kill protoss later instead.
so assume zergs played more safe and never died to 2base, then they wouldnt have this timing window to just go kill protoss that tries to secure a 3rd. makes sense right?
i read the other comments about the timing of the 3rd base. you might naturally think the later you take your 3rd base the safer it is, thats not actually true. if your doing a 2base attack on 13 minutes against a zerg, thats too late and hes just going to kill you easily. because he had been gaining so much more money from 3base than u been mining from 2base. so take that thought into your 3rd nexus completes at 13 minutes. now how are you supposed to defend a zerg when he has been mining from 3base for all that time? you want to take your 3rd nexus as early as possible and make it kick in BEFORE zerg actually can attack. in that way you get more units more everything.
a quick 3rd is considered around 8:00, a normally timed one is between 9 and 10 minutes. 12+ probably just means your bad. you cant take such a late 3rd and expect to defend the zerg rallying thats been mining from full 3base for 4-5 minutes
its not a simple task to defend a 3rd base as protoss safely, but trust me its even harder for zerg to do so
On April 25 2012 01:31 Excludos wrote: I don't think you're being entierly fair here. You're pretty much just saying every single protoss player is bad.
well if you look at the gsl statistics its actually <30% winratio for zerg for 2 seasons now in zvp
and its much more likely that its protosses outside korea being bad rather than korean zergs being bad
coming from korea was there for 3-4 months practicing alot especially with sage (whos expert mu is pvz) he didnt have much troubles taking and securing 3rd base defending vs mass roach ling attacks. also he never just took the 3rd without doing pressure or harassment at the same time
so far in europe, practicing on the ladder and tournament games the eu tosses play alot more passive when they are playing macro style and i think thats the key reason they have hard times against zergs
I love you Tang! I wrote you a PM asking for 3 base Roach ZvP and by chance you were working on exactly this :-)
I have a problem against 2 gate zealot +1 pressure however, how can I scout this and how should I change the build order? And what about 2 base immortal pushes?
Nice detailed guide! I especially like the macro benchmarks for people learning this style.
Just a minor quibble -- in your timing section, it currently reads to me like your lair should be started at around 8:00, when of course that's when the lair finishes more or less.
On March 30 2012 03:47 LazinCajun wrote: Nice detailed guide! I especially like the macro benchmarks for people learning this style.
Just a minor quibble -- in your timing section, it currently reads to me like your lair should be started at around 8:00, when of course that's when the lair finishes more or less.
Updated to 7:20, which more accurately reflects the lair and 3rd gas timings. Remember, it's your first 100 gas after you start gas 2 geysers at 6min.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Roll the 2 base dice. Or pray you're on a map you can easily wall off everything including a third and take a fast third and don't engage until you have a doom army. This style works well against Stephano style on maps like cloud where you can full walloff your third and then have 2 easy to defend chokes where you can proceed to turtle and go crush when you max at 15:30 and pray he doesn't already have a ton of broodlords. But yeah lots of praying and dice rollling.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Roll the 2 base dice. Or pray you're on a map you can easily wall off everything including a third and take a fast third and don't engage until you have a doom army. This style works well against Stephano style on maps like cloud where you can full walloff your third and then have 2 easy to defend chokes where you can proceed to turtle and go crush when you max at 15:30 and pray he doesn't already have a ton of broodlords. But yeah lots of praying and dice rollling.
I actually saw this exact scenario with stephano a half a week or week or so ago. I was excited cuz I thought "yes, a protoss player is going to beat stephano at this finally" Then stephano musters up like 15 to 20 broodlords and 10 or so corrupters(as well as other various ground units) as protection verse a mothership archon doom army. Broodlords spread out really well and mothership went down almost instantly...It did vortex a large chunk of broodlords and archons did pop the ones in the vortex but both stephano and protoss player(cant remember his name) lost there armies.....unfortuneatly stephano just reinforced with a butt load of roaches and steam rolled him
Love the guides tang, keep it up! What do I do if protoss goes stargate, double or single? I tried this build and my 3rd died to 3 void rays around the 10 minute mark.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Roll the 2 base dice. Or pray you're on a map you can easily wall off everything including a third and take a fast third and don't engage until you have a doom army. This style works well against Stephano style on maps like cloud where you can full walloff your third and then have 2 easy to defend chokes where you can proceed to turtle and go crush when you max at 15:30 and pray he doesn't already have a ton of broodlords. But yeah lots of praying and dice rollling.
yeah, if you manager to sneak a probe + pylon around his third, you can do a good deal of damage but it really depends on the zerg making a mistake by overdroning, not scouting, etc.
Oh boi thanks alot for guide i wanted to figure out myself from vods and replays today and then i look on TL and BAM its there :D finally is my switch to zerg complete
On March 30 2012 04:33 sgtjimmy wrote: Love the guides tang, keep it up! What do I do if protoss goes stargate, double or single? I tried this build and my 3rd died to 3 void rays around the 10 minute mark.
Scouting your opponent's gas timing at their expansion is probably the biggest indication (aside from overlord scouting and actually seeing the Stargate(s) building). If protoss takes both gas at the expansion early, he's going a tech-heavy build which means 2-stargate is a definite possibility, so you can afford to get a spore in the main and 3rd to be safe.
The response relies on Queens and Spores. I'm a fan of using 4 queens on 3 bases in ZvP so I can spread creep and defend against air easier, so I can easily produce extra queens as soon as I have indication of a stargate push (ideally meaning 3-4 queens ready to defend the 3rd with a spore). Remember when your lair is done, you can always morph an overseer and get a quick scout off immediately. Also, if you're getting an evo chamber at roughly 7min, you have a lot of time to place spore crawlers if you're unsure of your opponent's build.
If you're ever caught off-guard, you should SPAM spore crawlers. I've seen a game of Stephano's where protoss opened 2Stargate 3voidray/phoenix in close air spawns. Stephano proceeded to build a hydra den and about 8 spores in his main as well as 2-3 spores at his natural and 3rd. He lost almost no drones, cancelled some of the spores when a few had completed, and proceeded to max out off 3 bases.
Honestly, this is the first really useful guide written by you and... I love it! You always were writing nicely composed, fun to read guides, but it is the first time a guide that actually teaches how to become a better player. Keep up the good macro-oriented style, ditch the old all-innish stuff. :D
What happens when the protoss opens stargate? Does he just defend with spores and queens or does he get out hydras as well? And how does the zerg transition from this? Do you still attack around 12 mins? Or do you wait untill hydras?
On March 30 2012 05:08 naex wrote: As a zerg you use this build, when the toss is FFEing, but how can you play a similar style when the toss opens with something like a 3gate expand?
If you scout no fast expo, you don't build third and defend their 1base timing (with or without roaches). After defending you can take your third and transition into a roach-heavy similar build.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Actually almost nothing
The koreans know how to beat it
Which one? JYP won a single game vs. DRG in MLG against this style and that's because DRG stopped trying after his 12 min max.
Inori's build is successul against it, but that's because Stephano doesn't scout and Inori goes blind nexus first -> gateway -> forge to hit a 7:30 timing. That's hella cheesy.
Do that on ladder and you'll get rolled by early zerglings, 7RR, and <insert Zerg cheese here>.
This build was tested by Ranged and found to work reasonably well against this. Basically, it has a really, really fast third, a few sentries out early, then a big pile of blink stalkers. If you want to talk about how to *beat* this build, rather than how to *use* this build, feel free to go here so we don't muck up this thread with it.
Regarding Overlord drops... I think that's map dependant. I mean, you can literally wall off Shakuras indefinitely with 2 forcefields. You will NEED overlord drop using Stephano style to apply any pressure at all.
Very nice guide, sums it up pretty well, although a lot of it is covered in Belials as well. I was having huge problems in ZvP, where I feel quite comfortable now.
Regarding detection, one overseer at each base is clearly the best option, as the main harrass potential of P relies either on DTs or sending random squads of Zealots around the map, both of which cannot harm Overseers. 6 Zealots, however, or 4 DTs, quickly dispatch of any groundbased detection no matter what.
How do you defend a straight up zealot allin (I'm talkin like 10+ zealots in your face at 7-8ish minutes)? Or, rather, how do you scout it? I guess the solution is to build roaches earlier right? (There's a proxy pylon and zealots are warped in droves)
On March 30 2012 04:28 ScythedBlade wrote: I mean ... we all know Protoss is underpowered. I mean ... theSTC loses to MC playing Zerg as his offrace 50%. That's pretty crazy ...
But anyways, nice guide =D. I finally get to utilize his ZvP build instead of just his ZvT build.
Dont confuse one race being strong with another being weak (if so is the case...)
Guide is really helpful, i think a lot of plat-dia zergs struggle a bit with ZvP, this could be just what they ( and my offrace included, needs!)
I've just practiced this morning this build over and over against the AI. I barely managed to be 200/200 on the 13th minute, and I thought that Stephano maxes at 12:45 (12:30 at best). Then I read your guide...
Shit, gotta work again on it! Thanks Tang! Another excellent guide!
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Actually almost nothing
The koreans know how to beat it
Which one? JYP won a single game vs. DRG in MLG against this style and that's because DRG stopped trying after his 12 min max.
Inori's build is successul against it, but that's because Stephano doesn't scout and Inori goes blind nexus first -> gateway -> forge to hit a 7:30 timing. That's hella cheesy.
Do that on ladder and you'll get rolled by early zerglings, 7RR, and <insert Zerg cheese here>.
Stephano said before that he lost every game he played against LiquidHerO when he was training in Korea. However that was a while ago and so perhaps it shouldn't be counted. Another protoss player who was very good against stephano when they played was Titan. Finally, stephano lost to ST.Squirtle in 4 different games(I believe this was in Stephano's replay pack), where Squirtle played a variety of strategies and won each time.
On March 30 2012 06:04 PeanutsNJam wrote: How do you defend a straight up zealot allin (I'm talkin like 10+ zealots in your face at 7-8ish minutes)? Or, rather, how do you scout it? I guess the solution is to build roaches earlier right? (There's a proxy pylon and zealots are warped in droves)
Great Guide!! TangSC!! If any of you fear early warp in allin/pressure from protoss doing this build, watch the next 2 matches both from MLG Winter Arena. http://tv.majorleaguegaming.com/events/9-2012-winter-arena First one is Winners Bracket Round 3 Huk vs Ret Game 3 on Metalopolis. Second one is Losers Bracket Round Round 5 Naniwa vs DongRaeGue Game 1 on Daybreak
In both matches, gas at Protoss natural was not taken. Also, even gas at main base was not fully mined. Huk intentionally mined only from 4 probes total instead of 6. Naniwa even didn't take 2nd gas at his main to pull of that super early warpgate pressure. DRG lost his 3rd once, although he won the match. Ret lost the match right away. Lesson we can learn is that Protoss has to go pretty all in to pull of super early gateway pressure like those, so if you see no gas at natural and less gas at main, if possible, then making roach warren earlier like 6min or 6min30sec would be worth it. Remember, Protoss is pretty much all in doing those, so sacrificing 3 drones =150mineral in favor of earlier roach warren should be fine.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Actually almost nothing
The koreans know how to beat it
Elaborate please
Here are your choices Blind counter with immortals Have godly sentry control and cannon placement Get sentries and blink stalkers snd use micro to trade cost efficiently while you try to get immos/colo out
nice guide, the "Step 4 - Economic Considerations:" could have been left out. I believe the best counter as protoss is fast nexus into 1 or 2 stargates to shut down the roach agression with voids and then sniping stray overlords and creep tumours, while taking your 3rd and get those colossi out. Immortals are great vs small number of roaches, but on a maxed zerg army, colossi just deal more dmg and the voids will buy you enough time to get the 3rd up and running since the zerg wont be able to do much till he has hydras, mutas or corrupters out. As protoss, you still need some gateway units and a good amount of sentries/sentry energy early on though unless you want the roach army just to ignore the 1-3 voidrays and go kill your base.
On March 30 2012 07:24 yoona2012 wrote: nice guide, the "Step 4 - Economic Considerations:" could have been left out.
I know what you mean, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but a lot of players neglect the importance of maximizing their mineral economy. I can't emphasize how important it is to reach the 16 drone saturation, drones mining 2 per patch at 3 hatcheries as soon as possible.
I can't stress enough that this build is complete garbage if you can't inject properly, because it relies entirely on perfect injecting for 12+ minutes and attacking before protoss gets a third w/ stalker/sentry/immortal in big numbers. Even then, a good protoss will often pressure prior to the 60 drone mark so that you can't do the 12 minute max, as Puzzle did against Lucky recently. Most of the time you lose with this it will be due to bad injects or because you didn't tech/take 4th behind it and the protoss was good enough to defend.
On March 30 2012 07:24 yoona2012 wrote: nice guide, the "Step 4 - Economic Considerations:" could have been left out.
I know what you mean, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but a lot of players neglect the importance of maximizing their mineral economy. I can't emphasize how important it is to reach the 16 drone saturation, drones mining 2 per patch at 3 hatcheries as soon as possible.
Fantastic job on this guide Tang. It's got a very different flavour to your normal timing attack guides - good job with producing a macro guide.
I think some of the timings are a bit on the late side. Roach warren and evo should probably be 6:30 instead of 7:00 for example. A super fast 6 gate can hit at 8 and you really need to have roaches well under way by then to stop that really.
Also one thing I think is good is too simply skip zergling speed. The emphasis is on roaches anyway and you don't need many lings or at all with this guide. Against a +1 attack 6 gate your lings don't do too much and investing in speed for them is not that great imo. Skipping the speed means faster +1 ranged attack so that actually finishes before or during a potential attack. Super fast +2 ranged attack in case of P taking a third is also quite nice.
As for when protoss can take a third safely the proper way to handle I think is just to go up to 6 gasses and a 4th base asap and then teching muta or infestors. Gradually you want to switch into a ling style later on as that is just much better with infestor/broods. Getting burrow, burrowmove and drops can all be ok as they often pay themselves off but I think eventually you'll always should be switching to broods/infestor and eventually ling upgrades.
On March 30 2012 08:16 Markwerf wrote: I think some of the timings are a bit on the late side. Roach warren and evo should probably be 6:30 instead of 7:00 for example. A super fast 6 gate can hit at 8 and you really need to have roaches well under way by then to stop that really.
Also one thing I think is good is too simply skip zergling speed. The emphasis is on roaches anyway and you don't need many lings or at all with this guide. Against a +1 attack 6 gate your lings don't do too much and investing in speed for them is not that great imo. Skipping the speed means faster +1 ranged attack so that actually finishes before or during a potential attack. Super fast +2 ranged attack in case of P taking a third is also quite nice.
As for when protoss can take a third safely the proper way to handle I think is just to go up to 6 gasses and a 4th base asap and then teching muta or infestors. Gradually you want to switch into a ling style later on as that is just much better with infestor/broods. Getting burrow, burrowmove and drops can all be ok as they often pay themselves off but I think eventually you'll always should be switching to broods/infestor and eventually ling upgrades.
Those Roach Warren and Evo timings are something Stephano can still improve in my opinion. Stephano plays more generic and risky way compared to DRG. DRG delays his roach warren and evo chamber by as much as 1 full minute depending on his scouting while Stephano rarely change his timings. Not that Stephano is bad, its just that literally no Protoss in EU and NA are good enough to punish Stephano for playing that way.
On March 30 2012 08:46 Malstriks wrote: How do you deal with 2 base colossus/sentry pushes using this build?
A well executed 2 colossi push hits at 12 minutes- and in my experience as a protoss it isn't very effective against a maxed roach army. Just make sure to engage him before he hits your third- when the forcefields run out he is dead.
On March 30 2012 08:16 Markwerf wrote: I think some of the timings are a bit on the late side. Roach warren and evo should probably be 6:30 instead of 7:00 for example. A super fast 6 gate can hit at 8 and you really need to have roaches well under way by then to stop that really.
Also one thing I think is good is too simply skip zergling speed. The emphasis is on roaches anyway and you don't need many lings or at all with this guide. Against a +1 attack 6 gate your lings don't do too much and investing in speed for them is not that great imo. Skipping the speed means faster +1 ranged attack so that actually finishes before or during a potential attack. Super fast +2 ranged attack in case of P taking a third is also quite nice.
As for when protoss can take a third safely the proper way to handle I think is just to go up to 6 gasses and a 4th base asap and then teching muta or infestors. Gradually you want to switch into a ling style later on as that is just much better with infestor/broods. Getting burrow, burrowmove and drops can all be ok as they often pay themselves off but I think eventually you'll always should be switching to broods/infestor and eventually ling upgrades.
These comments are all really off base. You should study DRG/Stephano replays. Skipping ling speed is awful. The 6:30 Roach Warren is only if you scout the early pressure or 6 gate coming. You can't be scared of monsters under the bed or you fall behind.
11:00 Roach/Ling Aggression with +1 (No additional gas) You should have a large army of roaches with +1 and speed completed or nearly so. Deny 3rd base, pressure protoss natural (kill units, cyber core, force him to use Force Field)
I think it should be emphasized that the the whole build revolves around a roach/ling timing more of less is exactly @10:30 with ~150 supply in ling/roach. If you get lair with the first 100 gas roach speed and +1 will finish at 10:30 and then you should be able to strike immediately, anything else is sub-optimal. It's also almost never a good idea to max out on roaches.
On March 30 2012 08:16 Markwerf wrote: I think some of the timings are a bit on the late side. Roach warren and evo should probably be 6:30 instead of 7:00 for example. A super fast 6 gate can hit at 8 and you really need to have roaches well under way by then to stop that really.
Also one thing I think is good is too simply skip zergling speed. The emphasis is on roaches anyway and you don't need many lings or at all with this guide. Against a +1 attack 6 gate your lings don't do too much and investing in speed for them is not that great imo. Skipping the speed means faster +1 ranged attack so that actually finishes before or during a potential attack. Super fast +2 ranged attack in case of P taking a third is also quite nice.
As for when protoss can take a third safely the proper way to handle I think is just to go up to 6 gasses and a 4th base asap and then teching muta or infestors. Gradually you want to switch into a ling style later on as that is just much better with infestor/broods. Getting burrow, burrowmove and drops can all be ok as they often pay themselves off but I think eventually you'll always should be switching to broods/infestor and eventually ling upgrades.
These comments are all really off base. You should study DRG/Stephano replays. Skipping ling speed is awful. The 6:30 Roach Warren is only if you scout the early pressure or 6 gate coming. You can't be scared of monsters under the bed or you fall behind.
That and no one 6 gates anymore.
I'm not saying you should always have a fast roach warren but any time you see the +1 being researched right away along with the 3rd/4th gas not being taken too fast you would be better off with a faster roach warren as either just +1 zealot pressure or some sort of 6/7/8 gate is quite likely then. And don't be so stupid to think 6 gate isn't anymore, it's still being used a lot (6, 7 or 8 gate really is the same, 7th and 8th gate are not really neccesary but often used anyways). As for skipping ling speed temporarily, it is really good. Against pressure you'll not be needing the ling speed as you should be making practically pure roach, for pushing the third you don't need it either. If you decide not to mass roaches you can always get ling speed still.
On March 30 2012 10:21 Mithridates wrote: Good luck trying to take a third nexus against this build. I expect that 2 base allins out of Protoss will become more prominent because of this build
Not trying to give you a miracle solution, but one way to start is to not take a 3rd at the worst possible moment (around the 12th minute when he's maxed). A quicker 3rd around 8:00 is the way to go IMO; turtling may have its merits too.
On March 30 2012 08:16 Markwerf wrote: I think some of the timings are a bit on the late side. Roach warren and evo should probably be 6:30 instead of 7:00 for example. A super fast 6 gate can hit at 8 and you really need to have roaches well under way by then to stop that really.
Also one thing I think is good is too simply skip zergling speed. The emphasis is on roaches anyway and you don't need many lings or at all with this guide. Against a +1 attack 6 gate your lings don't do too much and investing in speed for them is not that great imo. Skipping the speed means faster +1 ranged attack so that actually finishes before or during a potential attack. Super fast +2 ranged attack in case of P taking a third is also quite nice.
As for when protoss can take a third safely the proper way to handle I think is just to go up to 6 gasses and a 4th base asap and then teching muta or infestors. Gradually you want to switch into a ling style later on as that is just much better with infestor/broods. Getting burrow, burrowmove and drops can all be ok as they often pay themselves off but I think eventually you'll always should be switching to broods/infestor and eventually ling upgrades.
These comments are all really off base. You should study DRG/Stephano replays. Skipping ling speed is awful. The 6:30 Roach Warren is only if you scout the early pressure or 6 gate coming. You can't be scared of monsters under the bed or you fall behind.
That and no one 6 gates anymore.
You should be scared of the monsters, people need to stop relying on scouting so much or that's the best way to get stupid, build order losses. But anyway RW at 7:00 is way early enough.
Funny how protoss say they can't do anything. If you FFE you are denying yourself the ability to pressure,accept that fact. You guys were laughing at zergs when FFE era came, now zergs finally learn how to counter that you are back to whining again. HAHA, I love protoss qq. We adapted, you should learn to adapt instead of whining,
On March 30 2012 03:57 AirbladeOrange wrote: I'm pretty upset you're posting this. I already see it and lose to it too much on the ladder. Please delete this thread.
On March 30 2012 03:51 TangSC wrote: Updated to 7:20, which more accurately reflects the lair and 3rd gas timings. Remember, it's your first 100 gas after you start gas 2 geysers at 6min. Thanks for the suggestions, LazinCajun.
If you start the two geysers at 6 minutes, you should have 100 from ONE geyser by around 7°25°, 200 from the two that you would make. You should have the gas at right around 7° from two. I haven't tested the resource timings though, so is 7°20° the approximate time you'll be starting it due to mineral constraints or is it simply not optimal to spend the resources until that bit later, but you need the geysers at that time in order to save up to start upgrades in good timing?
Personally ive been seeing a lot of all ins beat this on the ladder. Watching Catz stream the other day I saw a couple of toss beat him in a row, often with the toss cutting drones on their 2 base all in, to get it hitting before he had any roaches out. At diamond level where I play on NA and SEA, players have started blindly copying these all ins because every zerg seems to go Stephano style. I'm strongly considering going back to mutas until zergies start doing something different.
When i started playing stephano style my vsP skyrocket, its day and night difference in my MMR range(mid masters) :p Finally im capable of punishing protoss for years of me being beated :D
On March 30 2012 16:07 maddogmcgee wrote: Personally ive been seeing a lot of all ins beat this on the ladder. Watching Catz stream the other day I saw a couple of toss beat him in a row, often with the toss cutting drones on their 2 base all in, to get it hitting before he had any roaches out. At diamond level where I play on NA and SEA, players have started blindly copying these all ins because every zerg seems to go Stephano style. I'm strongly considering going back to mutas until zergies start doing something different.
Anyone can mass drones for the first 8 minutes of the game and be maxed at 12:00. What makes this style hard to play is precisely defending all-ins. If you're going to give up this style because you can't figure out how to deal with 2 base all-ins, then it's your loss, but you should be a little more perseverent.
I'm a bit surprised to see Tang write a guide like this now, since I saw his stream lessons about this exact style ages ago, long before people started writing guides about it (Belial88 made one for example).
Good work though, it's updated to be more like how stephano plays it, and while there's already several guides on the matter, this is definitely the most comprehensive and well written one.
The counter is: maxout of 2 bases with stalker/colosus or do drops. There is a good chance that, the zerg misses the window to get additional gases up plus spire/spines for corrupter. I often got steamrolled after i denied their third and maxed out with roaches.
I would only build roaches as long as he tries to take the third, after that you need to transition into somehing. (diamond level)
On March 30 2012 18:35 enykie wrote: The counter is: maxout of 2 bases with stalker/colosus or do drops. There is a good chance that, the zerg misses the window to get additional gases up plus spire/spines for corrupter. I often got steamrolled after i denied their third and maxed out with roaches.
I would only build roaches as long as he tries to take the third, after that you need to transition into somehing. (diamond level)
If you deny the third I recommend going muta because they won't have the gas to properly stop it and mutas help you deny their economy and prevent them from getting a deathball. Faster BL/Infestor is also an option, though you absolutely have to hit a timing before they attack with 3+ colossus or get a mothership deathball.
On March 30 2012 18:35 enykie wrote: The counter is: maxout of 2 bases with stalker/colosus or do drops. There is a good chance that, the zerg misses the window to get additional gases up plus spire/spines for corrupter. I often got steamrolled after i denied their third and maxed out with roaches.
I would only build roaches as long as he tries to take the third, after that you need to transition into somehing. (diamond level)
It's a quite common transition to start building the spire as you move forward with your roaches. As you trade armies and deny third, you remax on muta/ling instead of roaches, which means that any units which are really strong vs roaches are hardcountered immediately in the next attack.
Stargate or robo after FFE into expand to the third with sentries works to hold this but it's a bit of a difficult hold. YOu need to micro and macro quite well whereas zerg basically has a 1 unit army composition which can split up easily if needed. Especially with stargate it can be a bit more difficult as you really need to put your air units to work while macroing well at home.
Overall it really just depends on the map how to counter this. On maps with an easy third like entombed valley you can hold this attack easily with stargate into sentries and some (semi) walls and then proceed to kill them with colossi of three bases before hive hits (zerg is better off not trying the roach spam but teching quicker). On maps with a slightly harder to defend third but where muta's are fairly weak as cloud kingdom straight robo after FFE does well. With fast immortals/stalker/sentry you can expand just fine and blink can stop muta's quite well on this map, plus the map is small so it's easy to push before broods come out. Finally on maps like korhal compound or tal darim, ie. the third is hard to take fast and muta play is quite strong you can only do a strong 2 base attack now imo. Two base attacks are also very hard to hold for Z on those maps and if they follow the timings in this guide they will usually be too late too hold. If they really cut drones early and defend well you could probably transition from a blink timing into a third.
On March 30 2012 18:35 enykie wrote: The counter is: maxout of 2 bases with stalker/colosus or do drops. There is a good chance that, the zerg misses the window to get additional gases up plus spire/spines for corrupter. I often got steamrolled after i denied their third and maxed out with roaches.
I would only build roaches as long as he tries to take the third, after that you need to transition into somehing. (diamond level)
It's a quite common transition to start building the spire as you move forward with your roaches. As you trade armies and deny third, you remax on muta/ling instead of roaches, which means that any units which are really strong vs roaches are hardcountered immediately in the next attack.
I see IdrA and Darkforce go spire quite early in ZvP and aim for a giant muta flock in late game. I'm a big fan of Muta/Roach/Ling, though I never see it from Stephano.
Really nice guide, looking forward to the next one hope its "DRG ZvT - The 8:40 Roach/Ling/Baneling "All-In or Is it?", i thought it was Violet who first started doing this though, anyways this should help my Zvp :D ty again
On March 31 2012 00:46 Oerbaa wrote: Really nice guide, looking forward to the next one hope its "DRG ZvT - The 8:40 Roach/Ling/Baneling "All-In or Is it?", i thought it was Violet who first started doing this though, anyways this should help my Zvp :D ty again
I know violet does it too, but I saw DRG do it first - not sure who actually invented it.
On March 31 2012 03:05 freetgy wrote: PvZ will become so unplayable 8/ not like it was very enjoyable before that.
Well Stephano's style is certainly difficult to play against, but that doesn't mean PvZ is unplayable. It can be frustrating but you have to remember no matter what level you play at, your opponent will make mistakes. Also, if you're really on your game and lining up your timings perfectly, you can force Zerg to make mistakes. Don't ever get in the habit of thinking "X build is too strong I can't win," especially when there is a community of players ready to help you out if you ask!
On March 31 2012 03:05 freetgy wrote: PvZ will become so unplayable 8/ not like it was very enjoyable before that.
Well Stephano's style is certainly difficult to play against, but that doesn't mean PvZ is unplayable. It can be frustrating but you have to remember no matter what level you play at, your opponent will make mistakes. Also, if you're really on your game and lining up your timings perfectly, you can force Zerg to make mistakes. Don't ever get in the habit of thinking "X build is too strong I can't win," especially when there is a community of players ready to help you out if you ask!
Some clever person once said that relying on a opponent making mistakes isnt a good way of thinking
On March 31 2012 03:05 freetgy wrote: PvZ will become so unplayable 8/ not like it was very enjoyable before that.
Well Stephano's style is certainly difficult to play against, but that doesn't mean PvZ is unplayable. It can be frustrating but you have to remember no matter what level you play at, your opponent will make mistakes. Also, if you're really on your game and lining up your timings perfectly, you can force Zerg to make mistakes. Don't ever get in the habit of thinking "X build is too strong I can't win," especially when there is a community of players ready to help you out if you ask!
Some clever person once said that relying on a opponent making mistakes isnt a good way of thinking
Haha well I didn't necessarily mean relying on your opponent to make mistakes, but you should always know your opponent isn't perfect and be confident in your own abilities. . .Each time I play Stephano I tell myself I'm going to win. I never do win. But I still tell myself I will!
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
You make the gates around 7 minutes and warp in at 8:10 or so Build time is 65 in game seconds. He just worded that weirdly.
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
I call it the UltraGreedy GFE against Z who I expect will be playing greedy. You basically skip scout, go nexus first, and instead of going Forge gate pylon gas, you go gate gas pylon forge and skip the cannon all together, just get a zealot to defend. With a proxy pylon you can warp at their base at 7:00 with six +1 zealots.
Warp gate is so early that if your opponent is doing a 2 base all-in, you can defend it with first round of warpins, otherwise, it just hits a timing that zergs aren't used to.
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
You make the gates around 7 minutes and warp in at 8:10 or so Build time is 65 in game seconds. He just worded that weirdly.
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
You make the gates around 7 minutes and warp in at 8:10 or so Build time is 65 in game seconds. He just worded that weirdly.
edit: nvm he clarified and i posted this around the same time
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
I call it the UltraGreedy GFE against Z who I expect will be playing greedy. You basically skip scout, go nexus first, and instead of going Forge gate pylon gas, you go gate gas pylon forge and skip the cannon all together, just get a zealot to defend. With a proxy pylon you can warp at their base at 7:00 with six +1 zealots.
Warp gate is so early that if your opponent is doing a 2 base all-in, you can defend it with first round of warpins, otherwise, it just hits a timing that zergs aren't used to.
wow sounds a little risky, I assume it's only viable if you scout a gassless opening? would you do this against a zerg who takes gas?
as your build sounds optimized for that early +1 zealot timing with the first (i'm assuming first?) warp-in, what if your opponent hits you with a ling/baneling all in, would you have the gas to warp in sentries reactively?
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
I call it the UltraGreedy GFE against Z who I expect will be playing greedy. You basically skip scout, go nexus first, and instead of going Forge gate pylon gas, you go gate gas pylon forge and skip the cannon all together, just get a zealot to defend. With a proxy pylon you can warp at their base at 7:00 with six +1 zealots.
Warp gate is so early that if your opponent is doing a 2 base all-in, you can defend it with first round of warpins, otherwise, it just hits a timing that zergs aren't used to.
wow sounds a little risky, I assume it's only viable if you scout a gassless opening? would you do this against a zerg who takes gas?
as your build sounds optimized for that early +1 zealot timing with the first (i'm assuming first?) warp-in, what if your opponent hits you with a ling/baneling all in, would you have the gas to warp in sentries reactively?
It's not only a little risky, it's completely all-in. However if your opponent does any kind of all-in that hits after 7:00, you should be able to hold. My build gets 3 gases after gates so yeah I have enough gas to make defensive sentries. Thing is, since you don't scout, you can't really know what to expect.
I was only posting here because I beat Tang the other day with this when he was going Stephano Style opening and I wanted to rub it in a little ^^
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
I call it the UltraGreedy GFE against Z who I expect will be playing greedy. You basically skip scout, go nexus first, and instead of going Forge gate pylon gas, you go gate gas pylon forge and skip the cannon all together, just get a zealot to defend. With a proxy pylon you can warp at their base at 7:00 with six +1 zealots.
Warp gate is so early that if your opponent is doing a 2 base all-in, you can defend it with first round of warpins, otherwise, it just hits a timing that zergs aren't used to.
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
You make the gates around 7 minutes and warp in at 8:10 or so Build time is 65 in game seconds. He just worded that weirdly.
No I really warp things at 6:50 ^^
That is really smart Do you have the probe micro to defend 6 pool with that? Sorry for misunderstanding, thought I understood what you meant.
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
I call it the UltraGreedy GFE against Z who I expect will be playing greedy. You basically skip scout, go nexus first, and instead of going Forge gate pylon gas, you go gate gas pylon forge and skip the cannon all together, just get a zealot to defend. With a proxy pylon you can warp at their base at 7:00 with six +1 zealots.
Warp gate is so early that if your opponent is doing a 2 base all-in, you can defend it with first round of warpins, otherwise, it just hits a timing that zergs aren't used to.
On March 31 2012 18:08 aebriol wrote:
On March 31 2012 18:04 Forbidden17 wrote:
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
You make the gates around 7 minutes and warp in at 8:10 or so Build time is 65 in game seconds. He just worded that weirdly.
No I really warp things at 6:50 ^^
That is really smart Do you have the probe micro to defend 6 pool with that? Sorry for misunderstanding, thought I understood what you meant.
Lol no you auto lose to 6 pool and any 1 base zerg all in
This build is the most overpowered thing ever, max out 12 minutes whilst taking 4-5th whilst continuously trading with the protoss army whilst remaxing immediately. Then tech to Broolords infestor if you have to. There is literally NOTHING protoss can do. I just do 2 base all ins now, fuck PvZ.
On March 31 2012 21:31 Eiaco wrote: This build is the most overpowered thing ever, max out 12 minutes whilst taking 4-5th whilst continuously trading with the protoss army whilst remaxing immediately. Then tech to Broolords infestor if you have to. There is literally NOTHING protoss can do. I just do 2 base all ins now, fuck PvZ.
Don't whine. Get better... especially on your level (i consider you are not a progamer) there are no strategies which are unbeatable with solid play.
Has anyone doing this build encountered protosses who go nexus into 2gates (after scouting no gas from zerg) or 2gates into nexus while pumping zeals? If so, what is the best way to going about transitioning? Do you still get 3 hatch, or stay on 2 hatch and tech up with spines ? Go roaches and try to break him?
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Actually almost nothing
Nah, instead toss just has to be really smart. It deflects all the 2base pressures so don't do that... Although I have seen stephano lose to +2 blink all in before.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Actually almost nothing
Nah, instead toss just has to be really smart. It deflects all the 2base pressures so don't do that... Although I have seen stephano lose to +2 blink all in before.
If you're talking about the game vs JYP on shattered, then the only reason he lost was because he sacked around 3/4 of his roach army to killing the third base, and had nothing to defend against a counter attack.
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
Not like anyone has ever suggested you need to follow the exact build in the OP no matter what. You scout, see multiple chronoboost on cyber core, or simiply no or late gas at Protoss nautral, then just make Roach Warren that much earlier for higher possibility of early gate aggression.
Some talked about GFE, but even with FFE, 7min10sec warpgate research finish is possible. Watch Nanwa vs DRG in MLG Winter Arena on Daybreak where Naniwa only took 1 gas at main to maximize this build. Scout, then adjust accordingly. Thats all you need. Build in OP is a good start to adjust from, not absolute best in all situations for obvious reasons.
On March 31 2012 22:06 badtooth wrote: Has anyone doing this build encountered protosses who go nexus into 2gates (after scouting no gas from zerg) or 2gates into nexus while pumping zeals? If so, what is the best way to going about transitioning? Do you still get 3 hatch, or stay on 2 hatch and tech up with spines ? Go roaches and try to break him?
Actually if they open with 2gate zealot, you can do a Zenio-style Speedling/Baneling timing off 3 bases. In my experience, this response works really well. Or you could just get the gas before your 3rd hatch to make sure you can clean up his zealot pressure with lings. Perhaps even an earlier warren or a spine at the 3rd with slow lings.
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
I call it the UltraGreedy GFE against Z who I expect will be playing greedy. You basically skip scout, go nexus first, and instead of going Forge gate pylon gas, you go gate gas pylon forge and skip the cannon all together, just get a zealot to defend. With a proxy pylon you can warp at their base at 7:00 with six +1 zealots.
Warp gate is so early that if your opponent is doing a 2 base all-in, you can defend it with first round of warpins, otherwise, it just hits a timing that zergs aren't used to.
On March 31 2012 17:29 Geiko wrote: This style is quite good, but I've heard it can be very tricky to defend 7minute 5 warp gate pushes followed by 7 gate blink stalker all-ins.
how exactly do you get warpgate to complete before the 7min mark off a ffe? o.o
You make the gates around 7 minutes and warp in at 8:10 or so Build time is 65 in game seconds. He just worded that weirdly.
No I really warp things at 6:50 ^^
Like you say, this build is pretty risky and dies to early pools, Roach/ling or ling/baneling timings. It also hinges on being able to get that proxy pylon up to do the 5 gateway warpin, which most good zerg playes will deny with active ling scouting.
Hey Tang I was wondering if you could go into more detail regarding the Zenio bust? I've got a problem of not being able to get my overlords in position in time to scout my Protoss opponent only taking 2 gas especially if I send my first overlord in the wrong direction. I find that with the 14 pool you have to put your second overlord over your natural until lings are out otherwise there's a good chance they will throw cannons behind your mineral line. By the time lings are out and I've scouted protosses starting location I can't seem to get my overlords in the Protoss base if my first overlord didn't get sent directly too it. What should I do to assure I can scout the lack of gas and once I do scout it how do I transition from 3 base macro into a 3 base Zenio bust?
Tang, how do you continue to execute this build when P pylon blocks your nat and cannon rushes your 3rd? I can't seem to get more than 4 lings out without cutting my queen, and 4 lings can't kill the pylon in my nat AND stop the cannon rush quickly enough.
On April 03 2012 01:28 SKGZombie wrote: Hey Tang I was wondering if you could go into more detail regarding the Zenio bust? I've got a problem of not being able to get my overlords in position in time to scout my Protoss opponent only taking 2 gas especially if I send my first overlord in the wrong direction. I find that with the 14 pool you have to put your second overlord over your natural until lings are out otherwise there's a good chance they will throw cannons behind your mineral line. By the time lings are out and I've scouted protosses starting location I can't seem to get my overlords in the Protoss base if my first overlord didn't get sent directly too it. What should I do to assure I can scout the lack of gas and once I do scout it how do I transition from 3 base macro into a 3 base Zenio bust?
I've only been able to find two replays of Zenio doing the build, and it didn't seem to be in response to scouting his protoss opponent's expansion gas geysers. Basically you take your expansion then start your gas geyser in you rmain once your lings are out (Queen and lings will deny probe scouting in the main). You use your first 100 gas to research speed and then a baneling nest when you can afford it. Instead of getting a 2nd queen and playing standard macro, you stay on one queen and use her to spread one tumour and continue to inject. You drone to the mid/late 20s, then switch into ling production. You bust with 6-8 banelings and as many lings as possible off 3 hatch and 1 queen. It's usually used on maps where the protoss expansion is very wide open (Not ideal on maps that can be easily walled with large buildings (like Shakuras).
On April 03 2012 02:46 PeanutsNJam wrote: Tang, how do you continue to execute this build when P pylon blocks your nat and cannon rushes your 3rd? I can't seem to get more than 4 lings out without cutting my queen, and 4 lings can't kill the pylon in my nat AND stop the cannon rush quickly enough.
What do you do with your 2nd overlord? Personally, I send it to the 3rd right away so I know about any pylons going down at my expansion. If you see him starting to cannon your 3rd, send your 4 zerglings there first.
Also, why can't you produce more than 4 Zerglings? If you're making lings from 18-20, can't you just build another set or two at 20?
On April 03 2012 02:46 PeanutsNJam wrote: Tang, how do you continue to execute this build when P pylon blocks your nat and cannon rushes your 3rd? I can't seem to get more than 4 lings out without cutting my queen, and 4 lings can't kill the pylon in my nat AND stop the cannon rush quickly enough.
What do you do with your 2nd overlord? Personally, I send it to the 3rd right away so I know about any pylons going down at my expansion. If you see him starting to cannon your 3rd, send your 4 zerglings there first.
Also, why can't you produce more than 4 Zerglings? If you're making lings from 18-20, can't you just build another set or two at 20?
Mainly afraid of overproducing lings. If there's a pylon in my nat, and 2 pylons building at my 3rd, do I go kill the pylons at the 3rd first? Slow lings actually are pretty slow getting to my 3rd usually. Send first 4 lings to 3rd, build another 2 to nat?
I usually go gasless until the 3rd goes down, should i just get speed first always? idk It's not like speed will build in time anyway (before I need to plant my 3rd).
My overlord placements are:
1- Send to corner of enemy's base for eventual sac 2- to my nat 3+ - search for proxy pylons
Should I instead do:
1- To nat 2- To 3rd 3- To sac location 4+ proxy pylon spotters?
On April 03 2012 02:46 PeanutsNJam wrote: Tang, how do you continue to execute this build when P pylon blocks your nat and cannon rushes your 3rd? I can't seem to get more than 4 lings out without cutting my queen, and 4 lings can't kill the pylon in my nat AND stop the cannon rush quickly enough.
When my Protoss opponent blocks my nat and and then tries to cannon my third that I take as my second base I usually just stop the cannon rush with my first 4 lings then go back to my natural to take care if the pylon block. It might delay your third hatch (which is now at your natural) but as long as you keep producing drones making overlords and hitting your injects if your third dosnt go down right at 24 supply it's not a bug deal. Also if Protoss is spending that many resources to block the nat and cannon the third they are heavily delaying their tech so delaying your third a little really is no big deal.
On April 03 2012 02:46 PeanutsNJam wrote: Tang, how do you continue to execute this build when P pylon blocks your nat and cannon rushes your 3rd? I can't seem to get more than 4 lings out without cutting my queen, and 4 lings can't kill the pylon in my nat AND stop the cannon rush quickly enough.
When my Protoss opponent blocks my nat and and then tries to cannon my third that I take as my second base I usually just stop the cannon rush with my first 4 lings then go back to my natural to take care if the pylon block. It might delay your third hatch (which is now at your natural) but as long as you keep producing drones making overlords and hitting your injects if your third dosnt go down right at 24 supply it's not a bug deal. Also if Protoss is spending that many resources to block the nat and cannon the third they are heavily delaying their tech so delaying your third a little really is no big deal.
Let's say he builds like 3 pylons at my 3rd though. Like, he really, really wants to get those cannons down. One P I played against suggested I just 2-base muta. Is this viable? In the event that P commits rather hard (like 2-3 pylons and 2-3 cannons) to cannon rushing either my nat or my 3rd.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
i've been having a lot of trouble with it so i watching hero jyp and other koreans. what was most successful was a ffe into blink stalkers, but not all in. take a third with 5 gates blink and +2 and build up gateways with your third with cannons. The blinks stalkers not only are needed later to deal with bl but are highly cost effective in holding the relentless attacks. Also when you can, you want to throw down a robo for obs and maybe some immortals to assist.
the combination of blink stalker micro, cannon assistance, and well placed forcefields, are good enough to hold off the attacks and build up economy/tech behind.
the most important things ive found to stay alive are: 1. mainatin map control and harass to prevent droning with blink stalkers 2. dont be overly aggressive by moving out your tech gas units (sentries and immortals) bc a ling surround or fungal is gg 3. heavy stalker count is better than being spread thin on tech 4. as soon as attacks stop, be sure to immediately start teching to mothership and ht/archons (if they get too many broodlords, imo there is no way to kill their army without a archon toliet)
this is just my opinion. there are lots of other ways
On April 03 2012 08:37 PeanutsNJam wrote: Let's say he builds like 3 pylons at my 3rd though. Like, he really, really wants to get those cannons down. One P I played against suggested I just 2-base muta. Is this viable? In the event that P commits rather hard (like 2-3 pylons and 2-3 cannons) to cannon rushing either my nat or my 3rd.
Any good 2 base all-in should do it. hydra+nydus (with the nydus like a proxy pylon) is probably the best one. It's a pretty good all in, and if they are behind 400+ minerals from cannon rushing, they probably can't hold it.
On April 03 2012 08:37 PeanutsNJam wrote: Let's say he builds like 3 pylons at my 3rd though. Like, he really, really wants to get those cannons down. One P I played against suggested I just 2-base muta. Is this viable? In the event that P commits rather hard (like 2-3 pylons and 2-3 cannons) to cannon rushing either my nat or my 3rd.
Any good 2 base all-in should do it. hydra+nydus (with the nydus like a proxy pylon) is probably the best one. It's a pretty good all in, and if they are behind 400+ minerals from cannon rushing, they probably can't hold it.
I'm wondering if you could even just take your 3rd elsewhere on certain maps, knowing he can't move out with a gateway push as early since he put so much into cannon rushing the 3rd. Though personally, if a protoss is persistent enough I'll almost always go for a baneling bust.
On April 03 2012 02:46 PeanutsNJam wrote: Tang, how do you continue to execute this build when P pylon blocks your nat and cannon rushes your 3rd? I can't seem to get more than 4 lings out without cutting my queen, and 4 lings can't kill the pylon in my nat AND stop the cannon rush quickly enough.
When my Protoss opponent blocks my nat and and then tries to cannon my third that I take as my second base I usually just stop the cannon rush with my first 4 lings then go back to my natural to take care if the pylon block. It might delay your third hatch (which is now at your natural) but as long as you keep producing drones making overlords and hitting your injects if your third dosnt go down right at 24 supply it's not a bug deal. Also if Protoss is spending that many resources to block the nat and cannon the third they are heavily delaying their tech so delaying your third a little really is no big deal.
Let's say he builds like 3 pylons at my 3rd though. Like, he really, really wants to get those cannons down. One P I played against suggested I just 2-base muta. Is this viable? In the event that P commits rather hard (like 2-3 pylons and 2-3 cannons) to cannon rushing either my nat or my 3rd.
Are the 3 pylons finishing before your hatch? If that's the case just cancel the hatch and take your third somewhere else.
On April 03 2012 02:46 PeanutsNJam wrote: Tang, how do you continue to execute this build when P pylon blocks your nat and cannon rushes your 3rd? I can't seem to get more than 4 lings out without cutting my queen, and 4 lings can't kill the pylon in my nat AND stop the cannon rush quickly enough.
When my Protoss opponent blocks my nat and and then tries to cannon my third that I take as my second base I usually just stop the cannon rush with my first 4 lings then go back to my natural to take care if the pylon block. It might delay your third hatch (which is now at your natural) but as long as you keep producing drones making overlords and hitting your injects if your third dosnt go down right at 24 supply it's not a bug deal. Also if Protoss is spending that many resources to block the nat and cannon the third they are heavily delaying their tech so delaying your third a little really is no big deal.
Let's say he builds like 3 pylons at my 3rd though. Like, he really, really wants to get those cannons down. One P I played against suggested I just 2-base muta. Is this viable? In the event that P commits rather hard (like 2-3 pylons and 2-3 cannons) to cannon rushing either my nat or my 3rd.
Are the 3 pylons finishing before your hatch? If that's the case just cancel the hatch and take your third somewhere else.
That's what I was thinking. On a map like Shakuras or Antiga you could just take one of the middle bases and come out ahead.
Thank you for this guide! Maxing by 12 is harder than it seems for someone without masters+ mechanics (you supplyblock once or sit on a few idle larva and it adds up), but even when I only come close (my best in a real game where I'm losing things has been 14-15) I'm basically rolling diamond zvp. Using the benchmarks section to analyze my replays has been extremely helpful. Well-made guide.
A question - since the 12 minute max must presumably be followed by an attack (the only idea I can think of worse than sitting on max roaches without doing anything with them is dancing in traffic) do you recommend going up to 80+ drones after said attack? (And presumably then beginning to tech.)
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Actually almost nothing
The koreans know how to beat it
:note:
HerO shits all over it on his stream on the regular. He absolutely dismantled MVP.Killer/Sniper on his stream yesterday with 4 gates + robo, a prism and crazy forcefields backed with prism micro to save the immortals. But for us mere mortals......
I have a question, sorry if someone has asked this before, but... What is the transition you should be doing as Zerg if you scout protoss doing 2 stargate build after FFE? roaches and lings isn't going to cut it.
Do you just throw up a hydra den and continue to max out?
On April 05 2012 09:56 neoghaleon55 wrote: I have a question, sorry if someone has asked this before, but... What is the transition you should be doing as Zerg if you scout protoss doing 2 stargate build after FFE? roaches and lings isn't going to cut it.
Do you just throw up a hydra den and continue to max out?
Also what about DT timings?
Thats what stephano does he plants down a bunch of spores to defend gets a hydra den and then maxs out on roach hydra and pushs as seen in this replay of Stephano Vs Elfi
Since learning this build I have been dominating ZvP in diamond. With some simple micro and scouting its really easy to defend early aggression and deny the third. If you have the mechanics to not get supply blocked and etc this build should be the standard for your ZvP.
On April 04 2012 22:54 TheSubtleArt wrote: Tang making a macro guide? O_O.
Thanks tho, knew the general outline of the build but very helpful to see it all laid out
Well that's still to make an abusive unstoppable push at some early point in the game (12 min is still early for PvZ). When the build is designed so that your opponent cannot macro himself, it cannot really be called a "macro" build.
That's like calling a 7 gate after Nexus first in PvT a macro build.
On April 04 2012 22:54 TheSubtleArt wrote: Tang making a macro guide? O_O.
Thanks tho, knew the general outline of the build but very helpful to see it all laid out
Well that's still to make an abusive unstoppable push at some early point in the game (12 min is still early for PvZ). When the build is designed so that your opponent cannot macro himself, it cannot really be called a "macro" build.
That's like calling a 7 gate after Nexus first in PvT a macro build.
7gate has no transition if it fails. This one allows you to get a 4th, transition to spire right after maxing out if you feel like it.
On April 04 2012 22:54 TheSubtleArt wrote: Tang making a macro guide? O_O.
Thanks tho, knew the general outline of the build but very helpful to see it all laid out
Well that's still to make an abusive unstoppable push at some early point in the game (12 min is still early for PvZ). When the build is designed so that your opponent cannot macro himself, it cannot really be called a "macro" build.
That's like calling a 7 gate after Nexus first in PvT a macro build.
7gate has no transition if it fails. This one allows you to get a 4th, transition to spire right after maxing out if you feel like it.
I really like this build a lot. Thanks Tang.
There is a whole Protoss strategy thread (older than this one in fact) which mostly concluded that in theory this ZvP build shouldn't fail, and is at least very hard to stop/requires a very specific response. Stephano rarely loses with it btw. I didn't mean that it's an all in, more like it's not designed to play a macro game with Protoss. The goal is still to deny his third over and over by swarming him with an overwhelming amount of roaches early in the game, until P's just forced to 2 base all in. In fact, that may be the earliest dangerous Zerg timing in the ZvP matchup which isn't an all in.
This build is very good. A macro build? Well, you macro some roaches indeed, can't deny that.
lol the replays / examples shown vs Loco is a known Protoss map hacker / blink hacker aka ogsmc / Google (118/54 win/lose rank 89 GM) ( if this is played on NA server that is ) / if it is not I apologize
On April 04 2012 22:54 TheSubtleArt wrote: Tang making a macro guide? O_O.
Thanks tho, knew the general outline of the build but very helpful to see it all laid out
Well that's still to make an abusive unstoppable push at some early point in the game (12 min is still early for PvZ). When the build is designed so that your opponent cannot macro himself, it cannot really be called a "macro" build.
That's like calling a 7 gate after Nexus first in PvT a macro build.
Well it's a little different than a 7gate, because Zerg players who do this build have 60+ drones, 4-5 hatcheries, and decent upgrades. It's not difficult to add on additional geysers and a few drones to tech to spire, infestation, hydra, hive, overlord drop,etc.
Hey Tang have you tried this build with an 11 or 12 pool? I've been practicing it for a while and you can hit the 70 supply by the 8min macro benchmark with 2 gas Evo and RW. What this does is makes pylon blocks at your natural a non issue as 4 lings are out just as soon as you would send a drone from your main to make a hatch at your nat. This also allows you to send your second overlord out onto the map to scout rather than to your nat or third to check for pylons since you'll have lings to patrol these bases to watch for cannons.
Heres a replay (playing by myself) where I hit 72 supply by the 8 min mark off of an 11 pool http://drop.sc/154606
Also have you seen Alej's post in the how to beat Stephano style thread regarding the 12:30 hydra ling max used by Hyun?
On April 04 2012 03:42 Alejandrisha wrote: while this isn't pure roach i played hyun and he did a roach/ling hydra thing.. replicated it vs ai and here's what happens:
standard 14/16 3rd hatch at 21ish
~16 lings at 7:30 for safety 5-8 safety roaches shortly after made 4 spores to simulate sg w/e
10:00 - 8 roaches 30 speed lings are at P 3rd base +1 range finishes at 10:50 11:00 - 8 speed roaches 7 range hydras 60 speed lings at p 3rd base 12:00 - 8 speed roaches 19 range hydra 106 speed lings 12:30 maxed. 8 speed roaches 28 range hydra 124 speed lings (4 of the hydras and 12 of the lings haven't quite hatched, though.
what to do O_O edit: 2 gases standard timing then 2nd 2 are taken at about 60 food. 58 drones in this run
On April 06 2012 02:57 SKGZombie wrote: Hey Tang have you tried this build with an 11 or 12 pool? I've been practicing it for a while and you can hit the 70 supply by the 8min macro benchmark with 2 gas Evo and RW. What this does is makes pylon blocks at your natural a non issue as 4 lings are out just as soon as you would send a drone from your main to make a hatch at your nat. This also allows you to send your second overlord out onto the map to scout rather than to your nat or third to check for pylons since you'll have lings to patrol these bases to watch for cannons.
Heres a replay (playing by myself) where I hit 72 supply by the 8 min mark off of an 11 pool http://drop.sc/154606
Also have you seen Alej's post in the how to beat Stephano style thread regarding the 12:30 hydra ling max used by Hyun?
On April 04 2012 03:42 Alejandrisha wrote: while this isn't pure roach i played hyun and he did a roach/ling hydra thing.. replicated it vs ai and here's what happens:
standard 14/16 3rd hatch at 21ish
~16 lings at 7:30 for safety 5-8 safety roaches shortly after made 4 spores to simulate sg w/e
10:00 - 8 roaches 30 speed lings are at P 3rd base +1 range finishes at 10:50 11:00 - 8 speed roaches 7 range hydras 60 speed lings at p 3rd base 12:00 - 8 speed roaches 19 range hydra 106 speed lings 12:30 maxed. 8 speed roaches 28 range hydra 124 speed lings (4 of the hydras and 12 of the lings haven't quite hatched, though.
what to do O_O edit: 2 gases standard timing then 2nd 2 are taken at about 60 food. 58 drones in this run
Actually yeah, those games of Stephano against LoCo he opens 11 pool both times and does some damage. I like it, but I still prefer the 15pool.
On April 04 2012 22:54 TheSubtleArt wrote: Tang making a macro guide? O_O.
Thanks tho, knew the general outline of the build but very helpful to see it all laid out
Well that's still to make an abusive unstoppable push at some early point in the game (12 min is still early for PvZ). When the build is designed so that your opponent cannot macro himself, it cannot really be called a "macro" build.
That's like calling a 7 gate after Nexus first in PvT a macro build.
7gate has no transition if it fails. This one allows you to get a 4th, transition to spire right after maxing out if you feel like it.
I really like this build a lot. Thanks Tang.
There is a whole Protoss strategy thread (older than this one in fact) which mostly concluded that in theory this ZvP build shouldn't fail, and is at least very hard to stop/requires a very specific response. Stephano rarely loses with it btw. I didn't mean that it's an all in, more like it's not designed to play a macro game with Protoss. The goal is still to deny his third over and over by swarming him with an overwhelming amount of roaches early in the game, until P's just forced to 2 base all in. In fact, that may be the earliest dangerous Zerg timing in the ZvP matchup which isn't an all in.
This build is very good. A macro build? Well, you macro some roaches indeed, can't deny that.
If a build that gets 60 workers, maxes out at 12 minutes, has a solid timing and allows for a transition isn't a macro build, then what is?
Honestly I think the only way you can disregard this as a macro build is by swearing to the NO RUSH 20 mentality of some zergs.
I'm just a scrub, but here's my take on what he means. If you max on mostly roaches it can be pretty tricky to safely transition to higher tech. Your choices are either
1) Keep flooding low tech units and end up in a situation where you HAVE to do damage before it gets too hard to trade somewhat efficiently, in which case it can feel like a 3 base max pop all-in as strange as that sounds. Or, 2) Very carefully make your way up to hive tech, somehow trying to trade supply ineffecient roaches out to make room for better units. The hard part (imo) here is staying safe while doing so.
For comparison's sake, day9 highlighted a couple games from stephano on shakuras where he wasn't pressured much, and didn't make more than ~20 roaches. The P went for a pretty quick 3rd IIRC, and stephano only lightly pressured. He went over 100 drones, and basically went drone - spinecrawler - hatchery - creep spread while teching extremely hard to infestor / broodlord (with a decent chunk of corruptors thrown in to deal with a collosus push). The spines plus his small ground army with infestors let him grab a huge tech advantage, and he just walked over and killed the P with some stupid amount of broods.
Hey Tang, I just dropped by to say that I have enjoyed all of your guides and this one was the best one so far. I have a request that I hope you will do: could you make a guide on beating Terran mech as zerg, I think a lot of people will appreciate it. Thanks!
On April 10 2012 03:32 shizaep wrote: Hey Tang, I just dropped by to say that I have enjoyed all of your guides and this one was the best one so far. I have a request that I hope you will do: could you make a guide on beating Terran mech as zerg, I think a lot of people will appreciate it. Thanks!
My next guide will be on ZvT, but it's DRG's roach/ling/baneling. Coincidentally it works well against hellion expand, which is a common opener when players are going mech.
On April 10 2012 03:32 shizaep wrote: Hey Tang, I just dropped by to say that I have enjoyed all of your guides and this one was the best one so far. I have a request that I hope you will do: could you make a guide on beating Terran mech as zerg, I think a lot of people will appreciate it. Thanks!
My next guide will be on ZvT, but it's DRG's roach/ling/baneling. Coincidentally it works well against hellion expand, which is a common opener when players are going mech.
That would be nice. I'm doing a version of that build right now, although I'm not sure if it's optimized.
9 drone scout* 15 hatch, 14pool, 15 gas, two queens
*scout* *1 rax, 1gas= 1 spine crawler *2 rax, 2 spine crawler, earlier roach warren *two gas, evolution chamber, 3rd queen and spore...(keep going with the roach rush, Terran will be forced to choose between saving their own base with the banshee or going for a base trade....which they WILL lose) ******
drone to 28 lingspeed roach warren banelingnest 2 overlords 7 roaches 1 overlord as many lings as I can afford. rally to opponent's base, inject, more lings 8-10 banelings, 2 more in the back morphing while the attack occurs. hits at 8:40
bust down the front supply depo, keep any left over banes alive and in a separate control group. focus on raping scvs and clups of marines with any spare banelings.
works great. Most amazing thing about this build is that it's all off one gas.
On April 10 2012 03:32 shizaep wrote: Hey Tang, I just dropped by to say that I have enjoyed all of your guides and this one was the best one so far. I have a request that I hope you will do: could you make a guide on beating Terran mech as zerg, I think a lot of people will appreciate it. Thanks!
My next guide will be on ZvT, but it's DRG's roach/ling/baneling. Coincidentally it works well against hellion expand, which is a common opener when players are going mech.
Most amazing thing about this build is that it's all off one gas.
Actually the build I'm referring to is a 2gas version, droning to 44 before placing the warren down. This hits around 8:40 as well, but has way more drones, which makes it easier to transition into muta like DRG or mass ling/infestor like Stephano (or any other number of viable alternatives).
I've had a ton of success with this build since you posted it! The benchmarks really helped me improve but highlighting the moments where I needed to work on. I still have a ways to go as I find I have a tendency to underdrone in certain situations (namely if I get pressured by zealots) and occasionally fail to scout an early +1 zealot + void ray push at my third.
Thanks for the guide. One thing that would be interesting is how you should generally work out queen transfer timings. (Apologies if I missed it in your guide.) To get to 60 I believe you need to start building your third queen at your natural and transfer the existing queen at the natural to your third although I don't have the precise timings down. It will differ depending on the map but if you could add rough guidelines that would be helpful (e.g., if you're on a map where the third is about as far from your natural as it is on Shakuras then assuming you've taken your 3rd and 4:30 you should start building a third queen shortly after your second larva inject at the natural and transfer the existing queen at the natural to your third . . .) Because of a general lack of pressure from Protosses early game other than the odd 1-3 zealot timing which can be handled very easily with a handful of lings and drones, you can be uber precise with your drone/queen timings and really crank out the drones.
On a side note: You will almost certainly lose your third hatch if the P gets a pylon down near your base and builds between 8 and 10 zealots. (This assumes of course you didn't see it in time.) I've seen Stephano's third go down once or twice this way (to Bischu or Dream at the EG Cup recently). However, assuming you build enough roaches when you see this happening and transfer your drones away, you should still, surprisingly, be ahead of Protoss as long as you throw down a macro hatch, kill the zealots and then re-expand to the third. I've actually never lost when doing this build after losing my third to a gateway army. Protoss always has to invest so much and usually loses everything just to get the hatch. It's usually not cost effective.
Nestea's variant vs Tails seems to be the most powerful version. 70 drones, spire, +1, burrow, 4 bases, tunneling claws. The burrow forces Protoss to skimp at least 1 round of immortal production. Spire ready if Protoss is relying on cutesy fast colossus to handle the push. Muta switch can also be employed to not die to a silly 6 immortal counter push.
does this really work i mean if you up agains blink stalkers you gonna be floating gas because all the ling you gonna make (they rape just roaches). then you need to tech infestors and this build goes out the window am i wrong?
On April 12 2012 03:21 jax1 wrote: does this really work i mean if you up agains blink stalkers you gonna be floating gas because all the ling you gonna make (they rape just roaches). then you need to tech infestors and this build goes out the window am i wrong?
a) its meant to counter 2 base allins... you mass roach/ling from 3 base and from minute 8:00 on basically. b) how do "blinkstalkers rape roaches" please?^^ you have the bigger eco, roaches are cheaper - and at that time you will have speed out. c) if you make infestors, you simply die oO how can you ever afford to have enough gas and time to tech to infeswtors on 3 base trying to hold a 2 base allin? just roach ling man!
dont wanna offend you but: you play lower leagues i guess, right?
b) how do "blinkstalkers rape roaches" please?^^ you have the bigger eco, roaches are cheaper - and at that time you will have speed out.
i am diamond, well maybe it works if you get the roach count up, im just saying if you only make roaches against someone who makes mass blink stalkers idk you need lings then and then you have to change thing up with the gas. i am almost offended that you say one build can beat everything.
On April 12 2012 03:16 TheSwamp wrote: I would like to know more about queen energy management. When do I lay down a tumor and with which queen?
This is a matter of preference. I've seen players a 2nd queen before the 3rd hatchery so they can spread 1 tumor before moving down to the expansion.
Other times, I've seen an early production of 3 consecutive queens in the main (The third queen is used to spread tumors, first 2 for injects at main/natural) then building a 4th queen at the 3rd hatchery to inject there. I personally prefer a 4-queen, 3-hatch style to actively spread creep.
On April 12 2012 03:22 KalWarkov wrote: stephano maxed out at 11:04 today on his stream, he said it was his new record. was funny, the immortal sentry push came and he was maxed :D
11 min max out... the way stephano does it is protected against viable all-in strats as well... that seems broken to me.
What is worse is when Toss do find a minor build order victory... the Zergs response is to suicide the roaches up the ramp into the natural - killing everything Toss has in the process and effectively ending the game. If it doesn't kill the Toss out right thats ok though, as Zerg has already tech'd and remaxed on Broodlords at that stage :o
On April 12 2012 03:16 TheSwamp wrote: I would like to know more about queen energy management. When do I lay down a tumor and with which queen?
This is a matter of preference. I've seen players a 2nd queen before the 3rd hatchery so they can spread 1 tumor before moving down to the expansion.
Other times, I've seen an early production of 3 consecutive queens in the main (The third queen is used to spread tumors, first 2 for injects at main/natural) then building a 4th queen at the 3rd hatchery to inject there. I personally prefer a 4-queen, 3-hatch style to actively spread creep.
What I've seen Stephano do is walk down with his first queen from his main as he starts his second queen in his main. He injects his nat with this first queen, starting a queen at the nat about that time. He then waits with this first queen at the nat, put down a tumor, and walks it over to the third. So you get constant injects, and a tumor at your nat.
On April 12 2012 03:22 KalWarkov wrote: stephano maxed out at 11:04 today on his stream, he said it was his new record. was funny, the immortal sentry push came and he was maxed :D
lol the guy he played went double stargate with one fucking sentry and then carrier rushed. that like gold league. he would die to like every all in that exists.
On April 12 2012 21:04 jax1 wrote: players play so fucking stupid against him. the first thing they should do is going stargate then he have to change up alot.
He uses to say that a player who makes pheonix vs him is already dead.
Yesterday, Stephano also hit 192/200 at 12:00 after losing his third to cannons, which is freaking ridiculous. He even built 8-10 early lings and harassed the Protoss for a good portion of the early game, killing several probes.
On April 13 2012 00:09 The_Darkness wrote: Yesterday, Stephano also hit 192/200 at 12:00 after losing his third to cannons, which is freaking ridiculous. He even built 8-10 early lings and harassed the Protoss for a good portion of the early game, killing several probes.
Did he do his 11overpool early ling harass? I've seen him open this way to great effect, but I can't decide whether it's a better opening than 15 pool. . .
On April 13 2012 00:09 The_Darkness wrote: Yesterday, Stephano also hit 192/200 at 12:00 after losing his third to cannons, which is freaking ridiculous. He even built 8-10 early lings and harassed the Protoss for a good portion of the early game, killing several probes.
Did he do his 11overpool early ling harass? I've seen him open this way to great effect, but I can't decide whether it's a better opening than 15 pool. . .
I have more often seen him not doing damage and sitting there with 6-8 useless lings in the early game. Regarding his midgame is so good, I don't think thats a good risk to take. (yeah he is getting mapcontrol, but during a time where protoss can't be aggresive and good toss have a probe out somewhere)
On April 13 2012 00:09 The_Darkness wrote: Yesterday, Stephano also hit 192/200 at 12:00 after losing his third to cannons, which is freaking ridiculous. He even built 8-10 early lings and harassed the Protoss for a good portion of the early game, killing several probes.
Did he do his 11overpool early ling harass? I've seen him open this way to great effect, but I can't decide whether it's a better opening than 15 pool. . .
I have more often seen him not doing damage and sitting there with 6-8 useless lings in the early game. Regarding his midgame is so good, I don't think thats a good risk to take.
Well what I'm wondering is whether it really impacts the mid-game that much, I've heard arguments that the 11 Overpool is just as economical as 14/15 pools.
On April 13 2012 00:09 The_Darkness wrote: Yesterday, Stephano also hit 192/200 at 12:00 after losing his third to cannons, which is freaking ridiculous. He even built 8-10 early lings and harassed the Protoss for a good portion of the early game, killing several probes.
Did he do his 11overpool early ling harass? I've seen him open this way to great effect, but I can't decide whether it's a better opening than 15 pool. . .
I have more often seen him not doing damage and sitting there with 6-8 useless lings in the early game. Regarding his midgame is so good, I don't think thats a good risk to take.
Well what I'm wondering is whether it really impacts the mid-game that much, I've heard arguments that the 11 Overpool is just as economical as 14/15 pools.
I think thats right. 11 Overpool is only a bit behind in eco. Problem is the amount of lings you make. Its not a big eco risk, he still won most games, but I think its unnecessary.
Heres another 11min example, this time maxed out at 11:01. i wonder who can bring it to 10:40 first (edit: if not like 10:25-30) xD DL: http://drop.sc/158539
major shortcuts: - blind 3rd base - skipped lingspeed - skipped detection - ignoring incoming 8min pressure (lucky cancel in this rep)
room for improvement? - fewer drones and 4gas instead of 5, will it hit max sooner? more safe either way - a bit late 5gas for the amount of drones. - macrohatch could even be a 4th, maybe its not needed in the first place with lower drone count? - get detection in for the build to remain legit and transitionable - slight saturation balance obviously
It's really braindead but works wonders. Hopefully zergs will be able to optimize 3-4base 4gas mass roach a bit more so we can see some truly crisp timings, and hopefully will P find ways to at the very least survive in those cases where 8min-pressure is not applied.
Good luck everyone! looking forward to the development
On April 13 2012 00:09 The_Darkness wrote: Yesterday, Stephano also hit 192/200 at 12:00 after losing his third to cannons, which is freaking ridiculous. He even built 8-10 early lings and harassed the Protoss for a good portion of the early game, killing several probes.
Did he do his 11overpool early ling harass? I've seen him open this way to great effect, but I can't decide whether it's a better opening than 15 pool. . .
I have more often seen him not doing damage and sitting there with 6-8 useless lings in the early game. Regarding his midgame is so good, I don't think thats a good risk to take.
Well what I'm wondering is whether it really impacts the mid-game that much, I've heard arguments that the 11 Overpool is just as economical as 14/15 pools.
I think thats right. 11 Overpool is only a bit behind in eco. Problem is the amount of lings you make. Its not a big eco risk, he still won most games, but I think its unnecessary.
It probably depends on the map, but if you are confidant in your multitasking, you can tax the other persons multitasking as well as do damage.
An 11 overpool vs nexus first should always do some significant damage. I personally prefer 11 overpool on maps with rocks at the third (or between nat and third) so that worst case scenario, you send the lings back and start taking down those rocks to help prepare against the 2 base attack.
Even if they went pylon forge cannon, you can usually force an early double gateway to full wall or a probe pull to save the cannon.
On April 13 2012 00:59 Snute wrote: Heres another 11min example, this time maxed out at 11:01. i wonder who can bring it to 10:40 first (edit: if not like 10:25-30) xD DL: http://drop.sc/158539
major shortcuts: - blind 3rd base - skipped lingspeed - skipped detection - ignoring incoming 8min pressure (lucky cancel in this rep)
room for improvement? - fewer drones and 4gas instead of 5, will it hit max sooner? more safe either way - a bit late 5gas for the amount of drones. - macrohatch could even be a 4th, maybe its not needed in the first place with lower drone count? - get detection in for the build to remain legit and transitionable - slight saturation balance obviously
It's really braindead but works wonders. Hopefully zergs will be able to optimize 3-4base 4gas mass roach a bit more so we can see some truly crisp timings, and hopefully will P find ways to at the very least survive in those cases where 8min-pressure is not applied.
Good luck everyone! looking forward to the development
Well, not to be disrespectful, but you maxed out with 53 roaches only. I fed the build into a build order optimizer and according to his computations, you can hit 53 roaches with 2 base play (47 drones, no macro hatch, 3 gas) a minute earlier (from experience: you won't be able to hit computed times, but 10'15 to 10'30 is not a problem). In general the software calculates with way fewer drones (50..60 depending on roach target count) and tends to take the third (only if target >54 roaches) much later. It also gets only 2 queens. Thinking about it, it makes sense as you save money for drones, supply, hatches and queens. 1 queen = 2 roaches, 1 hatch ~4,5 roaches. Of course you need to be able to retain the pressure with reenforcements, but even with a 50..60 drone economy you'll be able to pump a reasonable amount of reenforcing roaches. In general i think we should not look for the max out, but also for the number of roaches@time. A 90 drone eco with 4 queens squeezing out a 40 roach army won't cut it :-)
On April 12 2012 21:04 jax1 wrote: players play so fucking stupid against him. the first thing they should do is going stargate then he have to change up alot.
He badly beat the two players that went stargate against him with this exact build so I'm pretty sure it's not just that everyone plays so "fucking stupid" against him.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
The popular metagame at this point (from a macro perspective) is for Toss to do FFE and for zerg to do 3 base roach/ling (duh). As a zerg player, let me tell you that in order to max out like stephano does you really have to play perfect. So to answer your question "what can toss do to prevent this?" is to just apply tons and tons of pressure. Dont let zerg get that third base. Or force zerg to make tons of lings when they want to make drones. You can do this by opening 2 gate +1 zealot pressure with a proxy pylon. You can open up stargate and force spores which equals wasted drones. Every little thing you do has a big effect on the zerg's macro. Hell, if a zerg player builds an ovie too early or gets supply blocked at any point will effectively lower his benchmark supply. So in essence if you force units instead of drones, force your opponent to miss injects/ ovie production, or anything around those lines is effectively preventing this. You can easily delay a zerg from hitting his benchmarks if you keep at it.
On April 13 2012 04:05 goswser wrote: As soon as people start competently executing strong allins against him (double robo immortal, 8 gate) hes going to start losing games.
On April 13 2012 00:09 The_Darkness wrote: Yesterday, Stephano also hit 192/200 at 12:00 after losing his third to cannons, which is freaking ridiculous. He even built 8-10 early lings and harassed the Protoss for a good portion of the early game, killing several probes.
How did he respond to losing his 3rd? I played an interesting game today where protoss cannon rushed my 3rd: http://drop.sc/158796
My response was just to expand to the gold immediately and try to keep the rest of the timings the same.
On April 13 2012 00:09 The_Darkness wrote: Yesterday, Stephano also hit 192/200 at 12:00 after losing his third to cannons, which is freaking ridiculous. He even built 8-10 early lings and harassed the Protoss for a good portion of the early game, killing several probes.
How did he respond to losing his 3rd? I played an interesting game today where protoss cannon rushed my 3rd: http://drop.sc/158796
My response was just to expand to the gold immediately and try to keep the rest of the timings the same.
He expanded to the 3 o'clock base on Korhal. He spawned at the 1-2 o'clock base. He's been taking a fourth gas right around the time he takes a third and getting a macro hatch, so he's slightly tweaked the build described in the OP and it seems better than ever (which has to be very scary for P). The game is in his stream session from two days ago. (I'm sure somewhere here could cite to it more precisely.)
Edit: Everything else he did seemed pretty much the same from what I recall - gas timings, etc., so it didn't really affect his build from what I recall.
On April 13 2012 04:05 goswser wrote: As soon as people start competently executing strong allins against him (double robo immortal, 8 gate) hes going to start losing games.
8 gate sure, but double robo immortal can be beat if you scout reasonably well and opt to not make pure roach. Ling/Infestor and Ling/Muta can be pretty effective in those situations and you can easily afford that with the production. Double Robo Immortal can't really be afforded without cutting a lot of corners, meaning fewer sentries/stalkers and no blink. I agree that there are probably some strong all-ins that people just aren't considering. I also find it odd how few people seem to use such builds against Stephano, while most other zergs (Nestea, Lucky, DRG) have been struggling against them. It's especially important that Stephano cuts tons of corners and doesn't really scout a lot in particular, which makes him particularly vulnerable.
On April 13 2012 14:01 BoZiffer wrote: Do you think this will eventually force P back into the 1/3 Gate Expo? I know that NoNy has been very vocal about his distaste for the Forge FFE.
I think so. I still see toss beating zerg going FFE vs double hatch before gas, but it is usually because of a mistake the zerg made. I am bad with map names but, for instance, zerg doesn't keep a ling at toss third, toss gets third up and walled off with gateways/cannons/sentries. Zerg needs to prepare for a quick transition, if you suicide up either ramp too fast they just counter and you can't defend.
I have seen zergs lose because they don't prepare or react correctly against air.
Also some maps don't allow for a fast third, so play needs to adapt for them, or the middle is still filled with chokes and roaches aren't effective.
However, typically I feel as if zerg lost those games, not that toss won it. The zerg didn't scout or react correctly, and they had the means to.
On April 13 2012 04:05 goswser wrote: As soon as people start competently executing strong allins against him (double robo immortal, 8 gate) hes going to start losing games.
Double immo hits too late. He will be maxed, attack when toss leaves base, remax attack again attack again at home, easy hold. 8gate is jsut a matter of starting to make roaches in time, not really important whta type of roach-build you do imo. I don't think Stephano will lose if he plays well ever.
On April 13 2012 14:01 BoZiffer wrote: Do you think this will eventually force P back into the 1/3 Gate Expo? I know that NoNy has been very vocal about his distaste for the Forge FFE.
I have been playing with 1 gate expo and it has been going really well. The only times I lose is when I move out w/ sentries when he has speed and I forget he had it.
On April 13 2012 14:01 BoZiffer wrote: Do you think this will eventually force P back into the 1/3 Gate Expo? I know that NoNy has been very vocal about his distaste for the Forge FFE.
I have been playing with 1 gate expo and it has been going really well. The only times I lose is when I move out w/ sentries when he has speed and I forget he had it.
With recall, 1 gate expo will become viable again. As it is now, you have to move out to pressure Zerg (you're behind in eco from the start unlike with FFE), but if he makes a lot of units you will just die and lose the game (so it's coinflip).
I played a game today on Daybreak where I was doing this build and the Protoss took a really early 3rd at around 6 mins. I maxed out around 12 min and tried to go attack his 3rd and it didn't work out. Forcefields plus a wall of gateways stopped me. I ended up losing but my question is this: When a Protoss takes a really early third should I make earlier roaches and try and pressure him before the 12 min mark? Whenever I win with this build, its when I max out at 12 but the Protoss took a much later 3rd and I was able to successfully destroy/prevent it.
I think you always want more base than a protoss or a terran, so if hes taking a fast 3rd, that means you wont get any aggression really fast so you can take your 4th and get your economy up so you can max out in less than a minute .... Or if you see that the protoss is going with colossi, then add corruptor to the mix. You also want to focus on the immortal (if any) in the battle. Just my opinion of a gold zerg
On April 14 2012 06:48 Fliparoni wrote: I played a game today on Daybreak where I was doing this build and the Protoss took a really early 3rd at around 6 mins. I maxed out around 12 min and tried to go attack his 3rd and it didn't work out. Forcefields plus a wall of gateways stopped me. I ended up losing but my question is this: When a Protoss takes a really early third should I make earlier roaches and try and pressure him before the 12 min mark? Whenever I win with this build, its when I max out at 12 but the Protoss took a much later 3rd and I was able to successfully destroy/prevent it.
Try taking a 4th faster and droning to 80. You can get brood lords by ~14 minutes if you do this, which they will have trouble preventing as you can defend their meager army with ling/roach/infestor. I've seen people take the fast third and this has been successful for me. Stephano vs WhiteRa in IPL is a good example of this kind of thing, though Stephano opted to pressure with roaches after his 4th base instead of go straight to BL.
On April 13 2012 00:09 The_Darkness wrote: Yesterday, Stephano also hit 192/200 at 12:00 after losing his third to cannons, which is freaking ridiculous. He even built 8-10 early lings and harassed the Protoss for a good portion of the early game, killing several probes.
How did he respond to losing his 3rd? I played an interesting game today where protoss cannon rushed my 3rd: http://drop.sc/158796
My response was just to expand to the gold immediately and try to keep the rest of the timings the same.
He expanded to the 3 o'clock base on Korhal. He spawned at the 1-2 o'clock base. He's been taking a fourth gas right around the time he takes a third and getting a macro hatch, so he's slightly tweaked the build described in the OP and it seems better than ever (which has to be very scary for P).
Interesting, thanks a lot! I'll look into these new changes.
On April 14 2012 06:48 Fliparoni wrote: I played a game today on Daybreak where I was doing this build and the Protoss took a really early 3rd at around 6 mins. I maxed out around 12 min and tried to go attack his 3rd and it didn't work out. Forcefields plus a wall of gateways stopped me. I ended up losing but my question is this: When a Protoss takes a really early third should I make earlier roaches and try and pressure him before the 12 min mark?
Yes, by 10:30 your speed should be done which means you start pressuring hard. There's no excuse for letting a protoss player hold a 6minute third base. I would just cut a few corners knowing he can't attack and drone up right to full saturation with 4-5 gas and 4 hatcheries, then really pump the production so I can deny that base between the 10:30 and 12 minute marks.
On April 13 2012 04:05 goswser wrote: As soon as people start competently executing strong allins against him (double robo immortal, 8 gate) hes going to start losing games.
Good point. If only JYP could competently execute a two-base all in he wouldn't be 1-6 against Stephano.
On April 13 2012 04:05 goswser wrote: As soon as people start competently executing strong allins against him (double robo immortal, 8 gate) hes going to start losing games.
Good point. If only JYP could competently execute a two-base all in he wouldn't be 1-6 against Stephano.
Yeah, I think well-executed all-ins are a viable option for protoss but it's not like Stephano hasn't beaten all-in timing attacks from the best of the best.
On April 13 2012 04:05 goswser wrote: As soon as people start competently executing strong allins against him (double robo immortal, 8 gate) hes going to start losing games.
Good point. If only JYP could competently execute a two-base all in he wouldn't be 1-6 against Stephano.
Yeah, I think well-executed all-ins are a viable option for protoss but it's not like Stephano hasn't beaten all-in timing attacks from the best of the best.
I think what protoss needs to do is just get some early immortals till you get like 4 and you can move it for a third. Many zergs are doing this strat so protoss can just blindly do this. Here's a replay of it: http://www.mediafire.com/?t512wq5gdn03fn1
Thanks for an awesome guide Tang! I've recently been playing more and more Zerg and might even make a total switch from P to Z since playing Zerg is so much fun!
I've have a question though, when doing this particular build I end up with a surplus of minerals more often than not (sometimes I happen to overdrone so that might be a reason). And then I was watching Stephano himself do this build and he also seemed to have quite a good amount of minerals.
Would it be a bad idea to, in the case of overdroning, to turn those drones to spines/spores and maybe even get more drones for this purpose.. Seeing as I seem to get so much extra minerals?
Tang is away for a few days, so be sure to check back on Wednesday for his answer.
If you mess up and over-drone, you may as well build spines or other buildings with the extra ones, since you have the minerals to do so and you will want to free up the supply for units. As far as intentionally overdroning, this is counter-productive.If you happen to have extra drones its one thing; intentionally making extra drones just so you can spend down your minerals on static defense is a waste of larvae. Over- anything is bad almost always; spending too much on one thing almost always means not enough on another. Even if you float 2k 2k in the late game, thats gonna disappear the second you re-max your army so it's whatever. Floating late is ok; floating early means youre doing something wrong.
I hate this fucking play so incredibly much! It's so god damn easy to execute but damn near impossible to defend. You have to play absolutely perfectly to survive this. And even then if you are pushed back enough you can't do dmg to the zerg and have to pray he won't break you until you manage to mass up the perfect army. And even then it's often slaughtered by BL/infestor play. And you have to rely on your gimmick unit The Mothership and pray to god you hit your vortex to be able to toilet the zerg. And god forbid the Mothership gets Neurald. Because then you are dead again.
Does anyone have a good way to keep track of how many drones that have been made for each base? Or do you just constantly check (ctrl-click for example) the drone count at the nat and the 3rd? I tend to feverishly produce drones and sometimes get oversated for some time on the nat, for example. Maybe it's just something that will resolve once I get more used to the build?
It's all a blur of queens and overlords and drones.... :O
On April 17 2012 21:42 Snerren wrote: I hate this fucking play so incredibly much! It's so god damn easy to execute but damn near impossible to defend. You have to play absolutely perfectly to survive this. And even then if you are pushed back enough you can't do dmg to the zerg and have to pray he won't break you until you manage to mass up the perfect army. And even then it's often slaughtered by BL/infestor play. And you have to rely on your gimmick unit The Mothership and pray to god you hit your vortex to be able to toilet the zerg. And god forbid the Mothership gets Neurald. Because then you are dead again.
If at sort of 9 minutes the zerg has not been disrupted, then it's kind of easy, yes (supposing that the z has some notion of not attacking into chokes where ff will cut the roaches into nice little easily digestable pieces of cannon fodder cakes... ). Other than that, most ppl who are not Stephano will probably see the 12 minute mark start drifting upwards considerably in the face of pressure. But hey, could be that I am a noob, too.
Yeah, I think well-executed all-ins are a viable option for protoss but it's not like Stephano hasn't beaten all-in timing attacks from the best of the best.
Once, can't remember which tournament, I saw Steph taking fast third without drone scout just supposing the Protoss would go ffe, but his opponent went for 4 gate! I felt kind of smugly satisfied seeing it as I thought it would be a lesson on the importance of not taking things for granted. But Stephano held it. It was cool and nauseating at the same time. It was on Antiga, I believe.
On April 17 2012 22:17 Automata wrote: Could this build be done in vT or even vZ?
can only be done vs a forge fast expand, you could max out on roaches in zvz but it's not as strong as roach + hydra/corruptor/both, and vs terran it's weak vs MMM or Marine/Tank/Medivac, so only vs mech would it be a possibly a good strat
Vs mech it's definitely feasible. But you have to time the roach warren well to defend hellion harass (much earlier than 7min). Upgrades and creep spread is also a bit more important in tvz vs mech than vs Toss. I saw Losira reach max with the map covered in creep, double upgrades and a 4th base at 13 min. After that it was waves after waves of roach-ling crashing into thors-tanks-hellions in insufficient numbers. A few minutes later the Terran third fell while our zerg hero had greater spire tech, I was quite impressed to say the least.
tang, i love this build a lot and use it in basically every ZvP. but one thing i'm really having difficulties with is defending 4 gate +1 zealot pressure after an ffe. if you could give me some advice or maybe a replay that would be great. Thanks! love your guides btw.
On April 17 2012 22:07 straycat wrote: Does anyone have a good way to keep track of how many drones that have been made for each base? Or do you just constantly check (ctrl-click for example) the drone count at the nat and the 3rd? I tend to feverishly produce drones and sometimes get oversated for some time on the nat, for example. Maybe it's just something that will resolve once I get more used to the build?
It's all a blur of queens and overlords and drones.... :O
When you are just saturating minerals, a control click is pretty easy to do. After you have 16 per base, when you add gas I manually add 4 more drones to that base. IE saturate main, saturate natural (both rallied to natural) saturate third (all 3 rallied to third), make 2 gasses in main, next drone round shiftclick down to 8 and rally them to the main.
Remaking after losing drones I box a bunch of them, hold shift and box the other side trying to only get drones + queen, then I tell from there.
Tangentially related question for the knowledgable and generous from the hopeful and clueless:
I've been using this build every time my Protoss opponent FFEs - as much for the macro practice as anything. However, quite often I end up facing some variety of 4-gate, which I might only scout after placing the 15 pool, and which may or may not involve a pylon block at my natural. I've been trying to come up with a go-to response, and wanted to run what I've got past people who can actually hold 4-gates reliably.
I open as described in the OP: 15 pool, 16 overlord, 16 queen, 18 lings x 2, with a scout drone at 10. Assuming I see signs of a 4-gate, I proceed as follows:
At this point (when practicing) I assume I'm going to be pylon blocked, and drone while waiting for the lings to spawn and get to the natural. By the time the natural is clear I have pretty much exactly 450 minerals, which I use to make a hatchery and a second queen, sending my first queen down to the natural right away.
I then drone to 25, and build 3 spines at the edge of my main's creep nearest the ramp at 4:40. Then I build a roach warren and take gas. When my second queen spawns I inject at the main and send her down to the natural. Then drones and overlords as appropriate.
The spines finish such that I can reburrow them at the natural by 6:00, and follow up with roaches shortly thereafter. The first queen has enough energy for a transfuse (or a creep tumour so the spines can help push out), with the second queen injecting at the natural.
Is all this even slightly a good idea? It feels ok, but maybe 3 spines is too many. I want them in place in case he brings sentries to block the ramp, and it doesn't seem possible to do that in time without building them while the natural hatch is finishing, particularly after a pylon-delayed expansion.
I tried building just two spines instead of three here, which leaves me with minerals for lings or another queen. Alternatively I could start my gas earlier and be able to make more roaches when the warren pops. Or I could go with the third spine.
On April 17 2012 20:21 Gyoza wrote: Thanks for an awesome guide Tang! I've recently been playing more and more Zerg and might even make a total switch from P to Z since playing Zerg is so much fun!
I've have a question though, when doing this particular build I end up with a surplus of minerals more often than not (sometimes I happen to overdrone so that might be a reason). And then I was watching Stephano himself do this build and he also seemed to have quite a good amount of minerals.
Would it be a bad idea to, in the case of overdroning, to turn those drones to spines/spores and maybe even get more drones for this purpose.. Seeing as I seem to get so much extra minerals?
I'd be more inclined to spend those minerals on a macro hatch and additional overlords, even taking the gases at the 3rd before spines/spores (Unless of course your opponent opens Stargate)
On April 18 2012 10:19 Umpteen wrote: Tangentially related question for the knowledgable and generous from the hopeful and clueless:
I've been using this build every time my Protoss opponent FFEs - as much for the macro practice as anything. However, quite often I end up facing some variety of 4-gate, which I might only scout after placing the 15 pool, and which may or may not involve a pylon block at my natural. I've been trying to come up with a go-to response, and wanted to run what I've got past people who can actually hold 4-gates reliably.
I open as described in the OP: 15 pool, 16 overlord, 16 queen, 18 lings x 2, with a scout drone at 10. Assuming I see signs of a 4-gate, I proceed as follows:
At this point (when practicing) I assume I'm going to be pylon blocked, and drone while waiting for the lings to spawn and get to the natural. By the time the natural is clear I have pretty much exactly 450 minerals, which I use to make a hatchery and a second queen, sending my first queen down to the natural right away.
I then drone to 25, and build 3 spines at the edge of my main's creep nearest the ramp at 4:40. Then I build a roach warren and take gas. When my second queen spawns I inject at the main and send her down to the natural. Then drones and overlords as appropriate.
The spines finish such that I can reburrow them at the natural by 6:00, and follow up with roaches shortly thereafter. The first queen has enough energy for a transfuse (or a creep tumour so the spines can help push out), with the second queen injecting at the natural.
Is all this even slightly a good idea? It feels ok, but maybe 3 spines is too many. I want them in place in case he brings sentries to block the ramp, and it doesn't seem possible to do that in time without building them while the natural hatch is finishing, particularly after a pylon-delayed expansion.
I tried building just two spines instead of three here, which leaves me with minerals for lings or another queen. Alternatively I could start my gas earlier and be able to make more roaches when the warren pops. Or I could go with the third spine.
The first thing I would do when scouting he isn't expanding is start gas, I think zergling speed/spines is always the best response to 1base play. If you reach full 1base saturation and then build an inject of zerglings (Think Sheth's ZvP openings against 1gate FE) then you can use those lings to either deny the proxy pylon or run-by into the main when he moves out. In general though, 2-3 spines and a lot of lines is the best defense against 4gate.
In terms of roaches, I generally don't start my warren until I know I'm safe from the 4gate. My goal when getting roaches against a 1base player isn't to help hold the 4 gate - it's to counter attack later with a roach/ling timing to deny his expansion and win the game. He won't have the necessary sentries to engage a roach/ling army in a cost-efficient battle.
On April 20 2012 01:26 dTox wrote: Great guide Tang. I'm mid-masters Zerg and have been struggling with Protoss since forever. Up until a few days ago i realized i was doing the stephano build wrong lol. Thats what happens when you 'think' you 'know' the build and dont need to see it on paper. Sigh.
Any way. What i want to know is how is the best way to react to chrono'd Zealots streaming towards you as soon as his Gate goes up after FFE? Sometimes they will gather 3-4 Zealots and send them together which really stubs drone production if your forced to make a bunch of lings.
Another question, when he opens 1 Stargate into fast third, what's the best way to react if you fail to deny the 3rd with roach/ling?
Many thanks.
I don't play Z as much as I used to but I think the correct response is spines over units for the zealot scouts/pokes
If you're not canceling his earlier 3rd with Stephano build, you should be taking a 4th behind it/teching to infestors/hive.
On April 20 2012 01:26 dTox wrote: Great guide Tang. I'm mid-masters Zerg and have been struggling with Protoss since forever. Up until a few days ago i realized i was doing the stephano build wrong lol. Thats what happens when you 'think' you 'know' the build and dont need to see it on paper. Sigh.
Any way. What i want to know is how is the best way to react to chrono'd Zealots streaming towards you as soon as his Gate goes up after FFE? Sometimes they will gather 3-4 Zealots and send them together which really stubs drone production if your forced to make a bunch of lings.
Another question, when he opens 1 Stargate into fast third, what's the best way to react if you fail to deny the 3rd with roach/ling?
Many thanks.
If it's only 3-4 zealots, I think you can get away with just slow lings. Nothing wrong with 3-4 extra sets of slow lings and keeping them by your hatchery/queen to handle any 1-gate pressure (2zealot1stalker or 3-4zealots). Shouldn't need a spine or earlier roaches to deal with this, just a few extra lings played defensively and otherwise stick to the steps.
You "should" still be able to deny his 3rd if he opens stargate (even if he has 2-3 voidrays, the DPS is not enough to kill more than 10/15 roaches and you should move in to take it out when it's about 75% complete). If your maxed out roach/ling army can't kill his 3rd and multi-pronged aggression isn't working, you can put down a spire and go mass roach/ling/muta/upgrades with the goal of continuously trade armies until you kill his 3rd OR play a more passive style by taking a 4th, building a lot of spines, and going infestor --> Broodlords. I think the Hive transition is the best though, Muta/Ling/Roach is great but it gets weaker as the game progresses.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Actually almost nothing
The koreans know how to beat it
Been watching MCs stream lately? If he's the standard to go by, koreans certainly aren't beating this.
Honestly I think there are a lot of viable options for protoss now, between the variety of nice 2base all-ins and heavy robo play. For example TTone crushed me the other day by putting on light pressure with 2zealot1stalker first, then a 4-sentry warp prism drop in the main, followed by a 3rd base with lots of sentry/immortal. Another player beat me with a straight-up 2-robo 8gate all-in with immortals/4-5 colossus and a giant gateway army.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Actually almost nothing
The koreans know how to beat it
Been watching MCs stream lately? If he's the standard to go by, koreans certainly aren't beating this.
Honestly I think there are a lot of viable options for protoss now, between the variety of nice 2base all-ins and heavy robo play. For example TTone crushed me the other day by putting on light pressure with 2zealot1stalker first, then a 4-sentry warp prism drop in the main, followed by a 3rd base with lots of sentry/immortal. Another player beat me with a straight-up 2-robo 8gate all-in with immortals/4-5 colossus and a giant gateway army.
Its not impossible to win, but it have to be with cheeses, allins, being 10 times better than your opponent, or somehow catching him offguard. There is no "legit" strategy vs zerg that will work every time as long as you play good. Considering the fact that zerg can hold most of these allins with a bit of scouting, and a slight differ in their main build (like earlier roach warren), puts protoss heavily on the backfoot. To further put salt into the wound, this build is so retardedly easy to pull off that myself, who have almost never played zerg, am winning vs other master protosses on my own level with it.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
Actually almost nothing
The koreans know how to beat it
Been watching MCs stream lately? If he's the standard to go by, koreans certainly aren't beating this.
Honestly I think there are a lot of viable options for protoss now, between the variety of nice 2base all-ins and heavy robo play. For example TTone crushed me the other day by putting on light pressure with 2zealot1stalker first, then a 4-sentry warp prism drop in the main, followed by a 3rd base with lots of sentry/immortal. Another player beat me with a straight-up 2-robo 8gate all-in with immortals/4-5 colossus and a giant gateway army.
Its not impossible to win, but it have to be with cheeses, allins, being 10 times better than your opponent, or somehow catching him offguard. There is no "legit" strategy vs zerg that will work every time as long as you play good. Considering the fact that zerg can hold most of these allins with a bit of scouting, and a slight differ in their main build (like earlier roach warren), puts protoss heavily on the backfoot. To further put salt into the wound, this build is so retardedly easy to pull off that myself, who have almost never played zerg, am winning vs other master protosses on my own level with it.
I see what you mean, I just think protoss players have ways of taking a 3rd (admittedly a delayed one) and ways of putting on pressure in the early/mid game to secure small advantages. I don't really think any race should be aiming for a single strategy that works every time.
How does one get that extra minute?! Is it just immaculate drone micro (close patches first, distribution at each expo, etc.)? Edit your guide down to 11 minutes please so I can own toss harder on the ladder :p
How does one get that extra minute?! Is it just immaculate drone micro (close patches first, distribution at each expo, etc.)? Edit your guide down to 11 minutes please so I can own toss harder on the ladder :p
It's really really hard basically, and anyone below GM will struggle greatly to get there. But yes, immaculate drone micro, never ny idle larva, perfect overlord timings, constant "proper' distribution are things that will help you get there. I find it slightly easier with DRG's 3 gas later. Also you need 4 gasses instead of 3, so when you would typically take your 3rd gas, you take your 4th aswell. I'm currently undecided as to whether 4 or 5 gasses is better, 5 you float a tad, 4 you need to make lings, which wastes some larva.
This guide has no "How to react to XYZ" section. And yet there have been very few "How do I deal with X?" questions.
Is everyone having the same experience where as long as they macro well and don't get caught doing something dumb (like getting forcefielded on the wrong side of a ramp), they mostly win?
Is there a Protoss build that some players here just can't figure out how to deal with? I was hoping this thread would eventually turn up some weaknesses in the build as more people would play it and discuss it, but the weaknesses discussion never seemed to materialize. Is it coming?
For game design purposes, it's concerning to me that the guide doesn't discuss major deviations to deal with different Protoss looks, and nobody has yet seen this as problematic. Are major deviations simply not necessary?
On April 23 2012 03:47 kcdc wrote: This guide has no "How to react to XYZ" section. And yet there have been very few "How do I deal with X?" questions.
Is everyone having the same experience where as long as they macro well and don't get caught doing something dumb (like getting forcefielded on the wrong side of a ramp), they mostly win?
Is there a Protoss build that some players here just can't figure out how to deal with? I was hoping this thread would eventually turn up some weaknesses in the build as more people would play it and discuss it, but the weaknesses discussion never seemed to materialize. Is it coming?
For game design purposes, it's concerning to me that the guide doesn't discuss major deviations to deal with different Protoss looks, and nobody has yet seen this as problematic. Are major deviations simply not necessary?
I've used it pretty successfully on ladder, but I've had a decent number of people hold it or disrupt it with early pushes or extremely fast thirds. Great force-fielding on certain maps really destroys roaches too. However it does feel like it works a bit too well. I think we just need to wait a while and see. If they have to change something I have no idea what they could change that would not make TvZ crappy(or change PvT).
Besides the Protoss taking really fast 3rds, a thing that I'm having trouble with is when the Protoss 1 gast expands. When I see a pylon and a gateway warping in on the highground I tend to overreact, getting gas and 4 spines thinking it's gonna be a 4 gate or something. Then when doesn't actually attack or do anything to me and just simply expands, then I go for my 3rd but by then my timings and such are already screwed up and I usually lose.
Another issue is when the Protoss does a Stargate opener and void ray/phoenix harasses me. People always say to counterattack with lots of roaches, which I do but he usually just sends the void ray's back home, warps in stalkers and keeps chronoing out more void rays after which I proceed to lose.
Other than that, I'm pretty successful with this build
I think this style will go out of fashion when protoss end up whinging enough to get nicer maps for a quick and easy to defend third, with more rocks and tighter chokes. Expect more maps like Terminus in the future because of builds such as this. Sorry.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
unless protoss stops doing FFE, right?
Well, that obviously doesn't easily counter this build, since you won't do this build if the toss doesn't FFE, since the toss is already giving up his strong economy.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
How does one get that extra minute?! Is it just immaculate drone micro (close patches first, distribution at each expo, etc.)? Edit your guide down to 11 minutes please so I can own toss harder on the ladder :p
I will be doing an updated Part-2 of the Stephano-style, a more in-depth look for those experienced with the 12min maxout who want to shave off some time and maxout earlier.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
Korean Protosses seem to be dealing with it absolutely fine, considering Korean Zergs only seem to use this build vs foreigners. The build of course kills any Protoss who failed DT rushes or something like that.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
unless protoss stops doing FFE, right?
Then they lose anyway?
No, it means they need to play differently instead of going FFE, sitting in their base for 10 minutes and attacking with a load of shit. This always happens. Protoss is always behind in the meta-game, but instead of working to fix problems, they whine until blizzard fixes it for them.
That comment is a troll magnet. Instead of responding directly, I'll just say that the phenomenon of complaining about perceived imbalance is not limited to Protoss players. Sometimes people's complaints turn out to be right, sometimes they're wrong. Take a look back at how informed opinions can change over time.
Korean protosses deal with this really easily. For about 3 weeks there, protoss didn't know how to play against this but it's been figured out over time.
Same as every shift in the metagame from fast dual upgrades terran (ling infestor becomes popular) to infestor/brood zerg lategame (ghosts become really useful before nerf, I'd argue they're still good). People figure things out, stop this whole "this build is imba" thing.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
Uh in general protoss players hold it very well now of days. White ra showed this vs Stephano in IPL as well. Protoss players already have figured it out (will pro's no idea about non pros or anything)
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
Uh in general protoss players hold it very well now of days. White ra showed this vs Stephano in IPL as well. Protoss players already have figured it out (will pro's no idea about non pros or anything)
On April 24 2012 08:25 SKGZombie wrote: So what's the proper response to a +1 zelot 4 gate after ffe when using this build?
Scout it and throw down the roach warren a bit earlier. If you have a decent amount of roaches out in time for the zealots, they will get absolutely crushed. You can also hold it with lings, but thats a situation you don't want to end up in, as its not cost effective.
On April 24 2012 08:25 SKGZombie wrote: So what's the proper response to a +1 zelot 4 gate after ffe when using this build?
Scout it and throw down the roach warren a bit earlier. If you have a decent amount of roaches out in time for the zealots, they will get absolutely crushed. You can also hold it with lings, but thats a situation you don't want to end up in, as its not cost effective.
Yeah, if you happen to scout chrono-boosted cyber core, it is advisable to get the warren around 6:30 OR produce a handful of slow lings. Usually players will move out with some Zealots to get map control and put a pylon down closer, if you can shut the probe/zealots down with slows lings you could stop the 4gate from hitting your expansion before a 7min warren comes into play (DRG does this). The easier/safer response is just to build the warren slightly earlier and save 3 larva at your 3rd so you can start 3 roaches there right away.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
Uh in general protoss players hold it very well now of days. White ra showed this vs Stephano in IPL as well. Protoss players already have figured it out (will pro's no idea about non pros or anything)
How many games did he win again..?
Not relevant, his losses were not caused by this build, he gained a significant lead in the midgame against it regardless of what happened in the late game.
i think this "build order" is just an example of what happens if you let zerg drone to the exact amounts and then only pump units
its obvious zerg will be in a great shape and has a silly amounts of units if he makes pure drones => pure units
if ur a toss and have trouble against zerg just getting way ahead in economy and then just runs u over with sick amounts of units. try manipulating his drone unit balance while taking a 3rd base. the more ur able to make zerg go unit,drone,unit drone etc the slower he will reach the 200 food mark.
a standard build you can do is 3 zealot pressure first from ur initial gateway and then 4gate (8:00minute) to force out a ton of units out of zerg before he gets the drone count he wants to. and then take ur 3rd base without actually ever losing or killing too many units. just being in zergs face gives him enough of a threat to build units when he doesnt want to
if u do this correctly you should be able to hold 3base rather easily
it should be obvious to everyone whos familiar with zerg at this point that if zerg makes only drones then only units his army will outnumber the other 2 races very heavily
stephano has great success because mostly tosses in eu are bad in general but also they either go for a 2base attack, and really attacks (and ofcourse that fails cause stephano only makes units at that point to respond) or they just sit passively and let him drone how he wants and then they take 3base and are clueless why they cant defend it.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
Personally, the 3zealot into 4gate pressure isn't my favorite - but I definitely agree that protoss needs to pressure consistently. Warp prism harass can be a great way to do damage, since most who use this style don't go for a spire until much later. Hitting in the early game with some "light pressure (3zealot or 2zealot 1stalker) followed up with Warp Prism harass (sentries first, warp in zealots occasionally) can force the zerg to make additional lings early and then also keep a portion of the roach army in the main to deal with Zealot warp-ins.
Playing passive and taking a 3rd won't work - Zerg will have roach speed and +1 by 10:30, which allows them to be extremely aggressive and engage in unequal engagement, while still coming out ahead with an economy to re-max quite fast.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
Uh in general protoss players hold it very well now of days. White ra showed this vs Stephano in IPL as well. Protoss players already have figured it out (will pro's no idea about non pros or anything)
How many games did he win again..?
Not relevant, his losses were not caused by this build, he gained a significant lead in the midgame against it regardless of what happened in the late game.
Of course its relevant. The stephano build isn't just an early game allin. Its set to put pressure with roaches so you can tech safely to broodlords and infestors. The second you use an example by a player who didn't end up winning the game, it becomes invalid. No matter what happened in the game. A loss is a loss. And he surely didn't manage to "beat" this build when he got pissed on in the lategame by stephano.
edit: thats not meant to be rude to White-ra btw. I'm a huge fan of him. But that series really did not go his way.
On April 25 2012 00:19 MorroW wrote: i think this "build order" is just an example of what happens if you let zerg drone to the exact amounts and then only pump units
its obvious zerg will be in a great shape and has a silly amounts of units if he makes pure drones => pure units
if ur a toss and have trouble against zerg just getting way ahead in economy and then just runs u over with sick amounts of units. try manipulating his drone unit balance while taking a 3rd base. the more ur able to make zerg go unit,drone,unit drone etc the slower he will reach the 200 food mark.
a standard build you can do is 3 zealot pressure first from ur initial gateway and then 4gate (8:00minute) to force out a ton of units out of zerg before he gets the drone count he wants to. and then take ur 3rd base without actually ever losing or killing too many units. just being in zergs face gives him enough of a threat to build units when he doesnt want to
if u do this correctly you should be able to hold 3base rather easily
it should be obvious to everyone whos familiar with zerg at this point that if zerg makes only drones then only units his army will outnumber the other 2 races very heavily
stephano has great success because mostly tosses in eu are bad in general but also they either go for a 2base attack, and really attacks (and ofcourse that fails cause stephano only makes units at that point to respond) or they just sit passively and let him drone how he wants and then they take 3base and are clueless why they cant defend it.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
I don't think you're being entierly fair here. You're pretty much just saying every single protoss player is bad. Putting pressure on the zerg is nothing new in PvZ. Everyone has experimented with all kinds of different pressure, and some have been successful for a while (like +1 4gate zealots with either voidrays or DTs). But in the end zerg manages to figure it out and stop it easily.
The reason most tosses these days goes for a 2base allin attack is because thats what they're having most success with, not because they've never tried anything else.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
Personally, the 3zealot into 4gate pressure isn't my favorite - but I definitely agree that protoss needs to pressure consistently. Warp prism harass can be a great way to do damage, since most who use this style don't go for a spire until much later. Hitting in the early game with some "light pressure (3zealot or 2zealot 1stalker) followed up with Warp Prism harass (sentries first, warp in zealots occasionally) can force the zerg to make additional lings early and then also keep a portion of the roach army in the main to deal with Zealot warp-ins.
Playing passive and taking a 3rd won't work - Zerg will have roach speed and +1 by 10:30, which allows them to be extremely aggressive and engage in unequal engagement, while still coming out ahead with an economy to re-max quite fast.
I disagree that taking a passive fast 3rd won't work or isn't viable. Players like White-ra, Axslav, and Puzzle have all done something of the sort. Tails also tried it but he failed. =(
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
Uh in general protoss players hold it very well now of days. White ra showed this vs Stephano in IPL as well. Protoss players already have figured it out (will pro's no idea about non pros or anything)
How many games did he win again..?
Not relevant, his losses were not caused by this build, he gained a significant lead in the midgame against it regardless of what happened in the late game.
Of course its relevant. The stephano build isn't just an early game allin. Its set to put pressure with roaches so you can tech safely to broodlords and infestors. The second you use an example by a player who didn't end up winning the game, it becomes invalid. No matter what happened in the game. A loss is a loss. And he surely didn't manage to "beat" this build when he got pissed on in the lategame by stephano.
edit: thats not meant to be rude to White-ra btw. I'm a huge fan of him. But that series really did not go his way.
Don't see what you're trying to say. White-ra's opening put him significantly ahead in the mid game, but he made many mistakes which caused him to lose the game. Stephano's build put him quite behind in tech and as a result of doing no damage, he couldn't tech to broodlords safely. Unfortunately, one of white-ra's mistakes was being too passive, teching to colossi and mothership while taking a 4th when he could have won with a stalker/sentry/immortal push or a colossistakler/sentry/immortal push.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
Personally, the 3zealot into 4gate pressure isn't my favorite - but I definitely agree that protoss needs to pressure consistently. Warp prism harass can be a great way to do damage, since most who use this style don't go for a spire until much later. Hitting in the early game with some "light pressure (3zealot or 2zealot 1stalker) followed up with Warp Prism harass (sentries first, warp in zealots occasionally) can force the zerg to make additional lings early and then also keep a portion of the roach army in the main to deal with Zealot warp-ins.
Playing passive and taking a 3rd won't work - Zerg will have roach speed and +1 by 10:30, which allows them to be extremely aggressive and engage in unequal engagement, while still coming out ahead with an economy to re-max quite fast.
I disagree that taking a passive fast 3rd won't work or isn't viable. Players like White-ra, Axslav, and Puzzle have all done something of the sort. Tails also tried it but he failed. =(
True, I spoke too soon - passive fast 3rd is probably possible, though in my personal experience it usually gets overwhelmed (I haven't seen the games you mention though). I just know that if zerg is left untouched, they can maxout with 4 hatcheries by 11min with +1 and speed roaches, which means makes it difficult to hold your expansion between 10:30-11:00 minutes.
On the other hand, the construction of a warp prism with 4 sentries is almost zero investment since you're building those sentries anyway. Then you have the ability to warp-in zealots at any time, which can make it easier to hold your 3rd.
EDIT: Out of curiosity what is the timing on that 3rd, Monk?
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
Personally, the 3zealot into 4gate pressure isn't my favorite - but I definitely agree that protoss needs to pressure consistently. Warp prism harass can be a great way to do damage, since most who use this style don't go for a spire until much later. Hitting in the early game with some "light pressure (3zealot or 2zealot 1stalker) followed up with Warp Prism harass (sentries first, warp in zealots occasionally) can force the zerg to make additional lings early and then also keep a portion of the roach army in the main to deal with Zealot warp-ins.
Playing passive and taking a 3rd won't work - Zerg will have roach speed and +1 by 10:30, which allows them to be extremely aggressive and engage in unequal engagement, while still coming out ahead with an economy to re-max quite fast.
I disagree that taking a passive fast 3rd won't work or isn't viable. Players like White-ra, Axslav, and Puzzle have all done something of the sort. Tails also tried it but he failed. =(
I think its very map dependant tbh. On maps like antiga and daybreak I would not suggest it. There could be something in taking an extremely fast third though. But I'm a bit afraid of what this could mean for the future of the matchups as well, seeing as it will almost always lose to any kind of early ling pressure by the zerg (You wont even need ling speed, so scouting if gas has been taken won't work as insurance). Which means we could end up with a scenario where you have to guess if the zerg does the stephano style, or something else, leaving you with a loss if you guess wrong. But thats just theorycrafting. Lets work on that problem if we ever get there
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
Personally, the 3zealot into 4gate pressure isn't my favorite - but I definitely agree that protoss needs to pressure consistently. Warp prism harass can be a great way to do damage, since most who use this style don't go for a spire until much later. Hitting in the early game with some "light pressure (3zealot or 2zealot 1stalker) followed up with Warp Prism harass (sentries first, warp in zealots occasionally) can force the zerg to make additional lings early and then also keep a portion of the roach army in the main to deal with Zealot warp-ins.
Playing passive and taking a 3rd won't work - Zerg will have roach speed and +1 by 10:30, which allows them to be extremely aggressive and engage in unequal engagement, while still coming out ahead with an economy to re-max quite fast.
I disagree that taking a passive fast 3rd won't work or isn't viable. Players like White-ra, Axslav, and Puzzle have all done something of the sort. Tails also tried it but he failed. =(
True, I spoke too soon - passive fast 3rd is probably possible, though in my personal experience it usually gets overwhelmed (I haven't seen the games you mention though). I just know that if zerg is left untouched, they can maxout with 4 hatcheries by 11min with +1 and speed roaches, which means makes it difficult to hold your expansion between 10:30-11:00 minutes.
On the other hand, the construction of a warp prism with 4 sentries is almost zero investment since you're building those sentries anyway. Then you have the ability to warp-in zealots at any time, which can make it easier to hold your 3rd.
If you take a fast 3rd, around 7 minutes, you have more units than you would if you took your 3rd at 10 minutes(the standard timing of a pressure into 3rd build). You have the ability to sim city 7 of your 8ish gateways instead of just 2-4 of them. You also have a solid 70 probe 6 gas economy to support all those gates/robo you might have. Yes, zerg can hit earlier, but you can at the same time provide yourself with better tools to defend.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
Personally, the 3zealot into 4gate pressure isn't my favorite - but I definitely agree that protoss needs to pressure consistently. Warp prism harass can be a great way to do damage, since most who use this style don't go for a spire until much later. Hitting in the early game with some "light pressure (3zealot or 2zealot 1stalker) followed up with Warp Prism harass (sentries first, warp in zealots occasionally) can force the zerg to make additional lings early and then also keep a portion of the roach army in the main to deal with Zealot warp-ins.
Playing passive and taking a 3rd won't work - Zerg will have roach speed and +1 by 10:30, which allows them to be extremely aggressive and engage in unequal engagement, while still coming out ahead with an economy to re-max quite fast.
I disagree that taking a passive fast 3rd won't work or isn't viable. Players like White-ra, Axslav, and Puzzle have all done something of the sort. Tails also tried it but he failed. =(
True, I spoke too soon - passive fast 3rd is probably possible, though in my personal experience it usually gets overwhelmed (I haven't seen the games you mention though). I just know that if zerg is left untouched, they can maxout with 4 hatcheries by 11min with +1 and speed roaches, which means makes it difficult to hold your expansion between 10:30-11:00 minutes.
On the other hand, the construction of a warp prism with 4 sentries is almost zero investment since you're building those sentries anyway. Then you have the ability to warp-in zealots at any time, which can make it easier to hold your 3rd.
If you take a fast 3rd, around 7 minutes, you have more units than you would if you took your 3rd at 10 minutes(the standard timing of a pressure into 3rd build). You have the ability to sim city 7 of your 8ish gateways instead of just 2-4 of them. You also have a solid 70 probe 6 gas economy to support all those gates/robo you might have. Yes, zerg can hit earlier, but you can at the same time provide yourself with better tools to defend.
Actually what I'm thinking is best is a very delayed 3rd base, later than the 10min mark. The problem with taking that 7min 3rd is what if they don't go into stephano style?
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
Personally, the 3zealot into 4gate pressure isn't my favorite - but I definitely agree that protoss needs to pressure consistently. Warp prism harass can be a great way to do damage, since most who use this style don't go for a spire until much later. Hitting in the early game with some "light pressure (3zealot or 2zealot 1stalker) followed up with Warp Prism harass (sentries first, warp in zealots occasionally) can force the zerg to make additional lings early and then also keep a portion of the roach army in the main to deal with Zealot warp-ins.
Playing passive and taking a 3rd won't work - Zerg will have roach speed and +1 by 10:30, which allows them to be extremely aggressive and engage in unequal engagement, while still coming out ahead with an economy to re-max quite fast.
I disagree that taking a passive fast 3rd won't work or isn't viable. Players like White-ra, Axslav, and Puzzle have all done something of the sort. Tails also tried it but he failed. =(
I think its very map dependant tbh. On maps like antiga and daybreak I would not suggest it. There could be something in taking an extremely fast third though. But I'm a bit afraid of what this could mean for the future of the matchups as well, seeing as it will almost always lose to any kind of early ling pressure by the zerg (You wont even need ling speed, so scouting if gas has been taken won't work as insurance). Which means we could end up with a scenario where you have to guess if the zerg does the stephano style, or something else, leaving you with a loss if you guess wrong. But thats just theorycrafting. Lets work on that problem if we ever get there
The only thing that really counters early 3rd is blind early speedlings. Slow lings won't stop an early third, especially reactive slow lings as every gateway unit is cost effective vs them and there will be cannons/sim city in time to stop them if you do it reactively. Also, antiga and daybreak aren't the best maps for early third, but they're both viable maps for it.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
Personally, the 3zealot into 4gate pressure isn't my favorite - but I definitely agree that protoss needs to pressure consistently. Warp prism harass can be a great way to do damage, since most who use this style don't go for a spire until much later. Hitting in the early game with some "light pressure (3zealot or 2zealot 1stalker) followed up with Warp Prism harass (sentries first, warp in zealots occasionally) can force the zerg to make additional lings early and then also keep a portion of the roach army in the main to deal with Zealot warp-ins.
Playing passive and taking a 3rd won't work - Zerg will have roach speed and +1 by 10:30, which allows them to be extremely aggressive and engage in unequal engagement, while still coming out ahead with an economy to re-max quite fast.
I disagree that taking a passive fast 3rd won't work or isn't viable. Players like White-ra, Axslav, and Puzzle have all done something of the sort. Tails also tried it but he failed. =(
True, I spoke too soon - passive fast 3rd is probably possible, though in my personal experience it usually gets overwhelmed (I haven't seen the games you mention though). I just know that if zerg is left untouched, they can maxout with 4 hatcheries by 11min with +1 and speed roaches, which means makes it difficult to hold your expansion between 10:30-11:00 minutes.
On the other hand, the construction of a warp prism with 4 sentries is almost zero investment since you're building those sentries anyway. Then you have the ability to warp-in zealots at any time, which can make it easier to hold your 3rd.
If you take a fast 3rd, around 7 minutes, you have more units than you would if you took your 3rd at 10 minutes(the standard timing of a pressure into 3rd build). You have the ability to sim city 7 of your 8ish gateways instead of just 2-4 of them. You also have a solid 70 probe 6 gas economy to support all those gates/robo you might have. Yes, zerg can hit earlier, but you can at the same time provide yourself with better tools to defend.
Actually what I'm thinking is best is a very delayed 3rd base, later than the 10min mark. The problem with taking that 7min 3rd is what if they don't go into stephano style?
If you scout no gas and go for a fast 3rd, and then zerg opens a build like this, I think it's a build order loss.
Early speedlings is a blind counter, but only at a specific timing. The build I do with an early 3rd gets an early stalker then mass sentries from 1 gateway. I wouldn't commit to an early 3rd if I see speedlings kill my stalker. And I'd have 2 sentries by the time you morph banes, which I argue puts me in an even better position than let's say a common zealot/zealot/stalker poke into 4 gate +1 push.
There are also builds that get 3rds between 8 and 9 mins and builds that get them between 6:30 and 7:00, so a lot of variety with fast 3rd builds.
Also, I really don't think delayed 3rd bases are the answer. Then zerg can just get way too far ahead in economy on 3 base.
On April 25 2012 00:19 MorroW wrote: i think this "build order" is just an example of what happens if you let zerg drone to the exact amounts and then only pump units
its obvious zerg will be in a great shape and has a silly amounts of units if he makes pure drones => pure units
if ur a toss and have trouble against zerg just getting way ahead in economy and then just runs u over with sick amounts of units. try manipulating his drone unit balance while taking a 3rd base. the more ur able to make zerg go unit,drone,unit drone etc the slower he will reach the 200 food mark.
a standard build you can do is 3 zealot pressure first from ur initial gateway and then 4gate (8:00minute) to force out a ton of units out of zerg before he gets the drone count he wants to. and then take ur 3rd base without actually ever losing or killing too many units. just being in zergs face gives him enough of a threat to build units when he doesnt want to
if u do this correctly you should be able to hold 3base rather easily
it should be obvious to everyone whos familiar with zerg at this point that if zerg makes only drones then only units his army will outnumber the other 2 races very heavily
stephano has great success because mostly tosses in eu are bad in general but also they either go for a 2base attack, and really attacks (and ofcourse that fails cause stephano only makes units at that point to respond) or they just sit passively and let him drone how he wants and then they take 3base and are clueless why they cant defend it.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
I don't think you're being entierly fair here. You're pretty much just saying every single protoss player is bad. Putting pressure on the zerg is nothing new in PvZ. Everyone has experimented with all kinds of different pressure, and some have been successful for a while (like +1 4gate zealots with either voidrays or DTs). But in the end zerg manages to figure it out and stop it easily.
The reason most tosses these days goes for a 2base allin attack is because thats what they're having most success with, not because they've never tried anything else.
yes. ofcourse zergs figure out how to stop it and so on. the point is your making units and showing them as aggression to the zerg (units that you would already need to defend ur 3rd anyway, so your basically investing nothing into your attack) while zerg has to respond by investing into things other than drones, which makes his eventual mass attack with roaches or whatever on you much much easier to defend
the point im trying to make is you dont need to do damage such as killing stuff, your damage is by forcing him to make units before he gets the critical amount of drones so early that he can just make units for the rest of the games, attack and kill you
all this (that i said) rather than just throwing down your nexus and dont show any signs of aggression to the zerg is the best way to go about securing your 3rd.
so if you 4gate zealot, if you force 8 roaches and 12 lings on the production tab, if you then go onto losing 7-9 gateway units while "forcing zerg units", then it doesnt pay off cause you lost a bunch of units. your not really forcing zerg to make units if he manages to kill your stuff in the process. the point is to show it and force units without actually losing units.
so if you have trouble defend against zergs who max out on 48 drones on minerals and 15 drones mining (63 drones in total) then you need to force him to make units before he gets to 63 drones
my suggestion to tosses who want to learn how to defend 3base toss is to actually practice a ton and ton of different 2base allins and learn exactly the drone count zerg needs to defend the different 2base allins you do. then make similar macro oriented builds where you display the same threats to the zergs eye (so he will think its that allin) but instead back off and take ur 3rd.
fake impressions and forcing zergs unit/drone balance is a very complicated thing and it takes alot of practice and knowledge about the matchup to do right
ill say a rather standard way to do it safely but still very fast and solid. go for the 4gate +1 stargate (your stargate should go down at 6:20, gates at 7:00 and your first 4 zealot warpin at 8:10~), then with your next 400 minerals put down your 3rd nexus and make a robo, sentries (at home). the 4 zealots should be warped in as close as possible to their 3rd (normally right outside the creep) robo finishes and try get out the observer asap and 3 immortals and 3 phoenixes. add a few gates to your 3rd base and a cannon if u like.
so now you should be on 7gates and have about 8 sentries and 3 immortals (also a ton of stalkers), not to mention the voidray and the 3 phoenixes that you must have kept alive. you forced alot of units before he got to his 63 drones with and u also forced 3 spores and a bunch of extra queens)
there is no way for zerg to max out that fast on roaches and there is really no timing window where he should be able to kill you. this is just 1 example build how to get ur 3rd up, but there is over 10 different ways.
just focus on learning the standard basics of forcing zerg to make units without you losing units at the same time ur taking a 3rd and youll be more than fine
and to emphasis on what you said that they have more success killing zerg with 2base than securing 3base is because of what i talked about. the zerg plays too greedy early on and dies to 2base, if he doesnt die then he gets an advantage which he uses to hit a timing to kill protoss later instead.
so assume zergs played more safe and never died to 2base, then they wouldnt have this timing window to just go kill protoss that tries to secure a 3rd. makes sense right?
i read the other comments about the timing of the 3rd base. you might naturally think the later you take your 3rd base the safer it is, thats not actually true. if your doing a 2base attack on 13 minutes against a zerg, thats too late and hes just going to kill you easily. because he had been gaining so much more money from 3base than u been mining from 2base. so take that thought into your 3rd nexus completes at 13 minutes. now how are you supposed to defend a zerg when he has been mining from 3base for all that time? you want to take your 3rd nexus as early as possible and make it kick in BEFORE zerg actually can attack. in that way you get more units more everything.
a quick 3rd is considered around 8:00, a normally timed one is between 9 and 10 minutes. 12+ probably just means your bad. you cant take such a late 3rd and expect to defend the zerg rallying thats been mining from full 3base for 4-5 minutes
its not a simple task to defend a 3rd base as protoss safely, but trust me its even harder for zerg to do so
On April 25 2012 01:31 Excludos wrote: I don't think you're being entierly fair here. You're pretty much just saying every single protoss player is bad.
well if you look at the gsl statistics its actually <30% winratio for zerg for 2 seasons now in zvp
and its much more likely that its protosses outside korea being bad rather than korean zergs being bad
coming from korea was there for 3-4 months practicing alot especially with sage (whos expert mu is pvz) he didnt have much troubles taking and securing 3rd base defending vs mass roach ling attacks. also he never just took the 3rd without doing pressure or harassment at the same time
so far in europe, practicing on the ladder and tournament games the eu tosses play alot more passive when they are playing macro style and i think thats the key reason they have hard times against zergs
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
Uh in general protoss players hold it very well now of days. White ra showed this vs Stephano in IPL as well. Protoss players already have figured it out (will pro's no idea about non pros or anything)
How many games did he win again..?
Not relevant, his losses were not caused by this build, he gained a significant lead in the midgame against it regardless of what happened in the late game.
Of course its relevant. The stephano build isn't just an early game allin. Its set to put pressure with roaches so you can tech safely to broodlords and infestors. The second you use an example by a player who didn't end up winning the game, it becomes invalid. No matter what happened in the game. A loss is a loss. And he surely didn't manage to "beat" this build when he got pissed on in the lategame by stephano.
edit: thats not meant to be rude to White-ra btw. I'm a huge fan of him. But that series really did not go his way.
AFAIK when people say "stephano-style roaches" they mean zerg maxing on roaches and taking out protoss' third and/or trading somewhat cost effectively with the protoss army to keep it small. If zerg does not acheive either of these goals the protoss can just counter push and win pretty easily, so in that sense it kind of is an all-in. It is certainly not a build that "tech safely to broodlords and infestors." If you don't do significant damage with your roaches you are behind on tech and probably on worker count as well. You may have seen stephano tech BLs/Infestors/go late game in games but that's because he probably he achieved one of the goals mentioned above with his roaches. I've seen games where stephano loses to these counter pushes as well when he doesn't do enough damage with his roaches.
yes. ofcourse zergs figure out how to stop it and so on. the point is your making units and showing them as aggression to the zerg (units that you would already need to defend ur 3rd anyway, so your basically investing nothing into your attack) while zerg has to respond by investing into things other than drones, which makes his eventual mass attack with roaches or whatever on you much much easier to defend
the point im trying to make is you dont need to do damage such as killing stuff, your damage is by forcing him to make units before he gets the critical amount of drones so early that he can just make units for the rest of the games, attack and kill you
all this (that i said) rather than just throwing down your nexus and dont show any signs of aggression to the zerg is the best way to go about securing your 3rd.
so if you 4gate zealot, if you force 8 roaches and 12 lings on the production tab, if you then go onto losing 7-9 gateway units while "forcing zerg units", then it doesnt pay off cause you lost a bunch of units. your not really forcing zerg to make units if he manages to kill your stuff in the process. the point is to show it and force units without actually losing units.
so if you have trouble defend against zergs who max out on 48 drones on minerals and 15 drones mining (63 drones in total) then you need to force him to make units before he gets to 63 drones
my suggestion to tosses who want to learn how to defend 3base toss is to actually practice a ton and ton of different 2base allins and learn exactly the drone count zerg needs to defend the different 2base allins you do. then make similar macro oriented builds where you display the same threats to the zergs eye (so he will think its that allin) but instead back off and take ur 3rd.
fake impressions and forcing zergs unit/drone balance is a very complicated thing and it takes alot of practice and knowledge about the matchup to do right
ill say a rather standard way to do it safely but still very fast and solid. go for the 4gate +1 stargate (your stargate should go down at 6:20, gates at 7:00 and your first 4 zealot warpin at 8:10~), then with your next 400 minerals put down your 3rd nexus and make a robo, sentries (at home). the 4 zealots should be warped in as close as possible to their 3rd (normally right outside the creep) robo finishes and try get out the observer asap and 3 immortals and 3 phoenixes. add a few gates to your 3rd base and a cannon if u like.
so now you should be on 7gates and have about 8 sentries and 3 immortals (also a ton of stalkers), not to mention the voidray and the 3 phoenixes that you must have kept alive. you forced alot of units before he got to his 63 drones with and u also forced 3 spores and a bunch of extra queens)
there is no way for zerg to max out that fast on roaches and there is really no timing window where he should be able to kill you. this is just 1 example build how to get ur 3rd up, but there is over 10 different ways.
just focus on learning the standard basics of forcing zerg to make units without you losing units at the same time ur taking a 3rd and youll be more than fine
and to emphasis on what you said that they have more success killing zerg with 2base than securing 3base is because of what i talked about. the zerg plays too greedy early on and dies to 2base, if he doesnt die then he gets an advantage which he uses to hit a timing to kill protoss later instead.
so assume zergs played more safe and never died to 2base, then they wouldnt have this timing window to just go kill protoss that tries to secure a 3rd. makes sense right?
i read the other comments about the timing of the 3rd base. you might naturally think the later you take your 3rd base the safer it is, thats not actually true. if your doing a 2base attack on 13 minutes against a zerg, thats too late and hes just going to kill you easily. because he had been gaining so much more money from 3base than u been mining from 2base. so take that thought into your 3rd nexus completes at 13 minutes. now how are you supposed to defend a zerg when he has been mining from 3base for all that time? you want to take your 3rd nexus as early as possible and make it kick in BEFORE zerg actually can attack. in that way you get more units more everything.
a quick 3rd is considered around 8:00, a normally timed one is between 9 and 10 minutes. 12+ probably just means your bad. you cant take such a late 3rd and expect to defend the zerg rallying thats been mining from full 3base for 4-5 minutes
its not a simple task to defend a 3rd base as protoss safely, but trust me its even harder for zerg to do so
MorroW, this is a seriously quality post. TL was much better when pros came out and posted on the strat forums, thanks for doing this.
I pretty much agree with everything that's being said here. I find fast third styles just as hard to deal with (if not even harder) than just 2 base allins from toss, because it's the threat of the allin or some pressure that protoss did that interrupts your economy powering as Zerg. If you scout 2 gases at the natural at like 6:30 from toss, then you're thinking double stargate or DT or some crazy tech build, but toss can actually do this entire thing to fake you out and pull the guys off his main gas so he's only mining 2 gas, force you to respond to tech, and then make a third nexus and a bunch of gateway units to defend.
It's like how in chess, the threat of a certain move is often stronger than the move itself, because the threat of it forces a specific response from the opponent which then in turn might weaken his position in another way... If you just play the move straight up, then your opponent will be resourceful and find a defense for it. Of course this cycle continues where the move itself might become strong again, since your opponent understands that you are thinking ahead and plans for the overall "better" plan which involves not playing the move, flowing with the position, and maintaining the tension of it, so now he prepares for the more optimal plan instead of the Layer 1 plan where you just play the move, so you play it and then it works.
That was a really convoluted last sentence but it's basically just describing the metagame of how different strats become weak and strong based on players making reads on each other. Right now I feel that in high master where I'm playing ZvP, it's too straight up. Toss does some kind of 2 base timing, and it either works or it doesn't work cause they've been doing the same stuff for like 2 months and zergs have figured out good scout timings to check for gases and gateway counts and sentry times. If you start mixing in fast thirds with the 8 gates, then it actually makes both builds stronger cause zerg has to prepare his response for both.
On April 23 2012 12:40 Man with a Plan wrote: This is very situational imo and will be easily countered once people gets the right reaction to it.
I hope you're not talking about the build in general. Every zerg and their mother does this build now, and every protoss knows its coming. Yet no one seems to be able to figure out a propper way to deal with it with the exception of somekind of unscouted allin. This build will never be "easily" countered in the current metagame, mappool and patch.
Uh in general protoss players hold it very well now of days. White ra showed this vs Stephano in IPL as well. Protoss players already have figured it out (will pro's no idea about non pros or anything)
How many games did he win again..?
Not relevant, his losses were not caused by this build, he gained a significant lead in the midgame against it regardless of what happened in the late game.
Of course its relevant. The stephano build isn't just an early game allin. Its set to put pressure with roaches so you can tech safely to broodlords and infestors. The second you use an example by a player who didn't end up winning the game, it becomes invalid. No matter what happened in the game. A loss is a loss. And he surely didn't manage to "beat" this build when he got pissed on in the lategame by stephano.
edit: thats not meant to be rude to White-ra btw. I'm a huge fan of him. But that series really did not go his way.
AFAIK when people say "stephano-style roaches" they mean zerg maxing on roaches and taking out protoss' third and/or trading somewhat cost effectively with the protoss army to keep it small. If zerg does not acheive either of these goals the protoss can just counter push and win pretty easily, so in that sense it kind of is an all-in. It is certainly not a build that "tech safely to broodlords and infestors." If you don't do significant damage with your roaches you are behind on tech and probably on worker count as well. You may have seen stephano tech BLs/Infestors/go late game in games but that's because he probably he achieved one of the goals mentioned above with his roaches. I've seen games where stephano loses to these counter pushes as well when he doesn't do enough damage with his roaches.
I would agree for the most part; I don't know if you're necessarily far behind in tech, but if you don't do significant damage there's a scary window where 3base protoss can kill you before Broodlords. Hence the mass spine/infestor defense, but one of the most important things is not to lose any of the 4th/5th Zerg bases to DTs or other warp-ins at this stage in the game.
I think morrow is right its just a matter of using the units you make in the beginning to force units (by feigning all ins and knowing when speed finishes). but every toss seems to forget you cant lose these units, because you NEED them to defend your third. most tosses are super passive while sitting on 2 bases. you have to make some units, you might as well try to get then to work for you WITHOUT fighting
Wow this thread has gotten a ton views. I don't come by the strategy forums often so I don't see threads come and go. Morrow's insight is really sick, not only is it helping toss players but it's also helping Zergs understand the kind of tactics that protoss uses and the reasoning behind them. Very valuable post by Morrow here here.
On April 25 2012 00:19 MorroW wrote: i think this "build order" is just an example of what happens if you let zerg drone to the exact amounts and then only pump units
its obvious zerg will be in a great shape and has a silly amounts of units if he makes pure drones => pure units
if ur a toss and have trouble against zerg just getting way ahead in economy and then just runs u over with sick amounts of units. try manipulating his drone unit balance while taking a 3rd base. the more ur able to make zerg go unit,drone,unit drone etc the slower he will reach the 200 food mark.
a standard build you can do is 3 zealot pressure first from ur initial gateway and then 4gate (8:00minute) to force out a ton of units out of zerg before he gets the drone count he wants to. and then take ur 3rd base without actually ever losing or killing too many units. just being in zergs face gives him enough of a threat to build units when he doesnt want to
if u do this correctly you should be able to hold 3base rather easily
it should be obvious to everyone whos familiar with zerg at this point that if zerg makes only drones then only units his army will outnumber the other 2 races very heavily
stephano has great success because mostly tosses in eu are bad in general but also they either go for a 2base attack, and really attacks (and ofcourse that fails cause stephano only makes units at that point to respond) or they just sit passively and let him drone how he wants and then they take 3base and are clueless why they cant defend it.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
I don't think you're being entierly fair here. You're pretty much just saying every single protoss player is bad. Putting pressure on the zerg is nothing new in PvZ. Everyone has experimented with all kinds of different pressure, and some have been successful for a while (like +1 4gate zealots with either voidrays or DTs). But in the end zerg manages to figure it out and stop it easily.
The reason most tosses these days goes for a 2base allin attack is because thats what they're having most success with, not because they've never tried anything else.
yes. ofcourse zergs figure out how to stop it and so on. the point is your making units and showing them as aggression to the zerg (units that you would already need to defend ur 3rd anyway, so your basically investing nothing into your attack) while zerg has to respond by investing into things other than drones, which makes his eventual mass attack with roaches or whatever on you much much easier to defend
the point im trying to make is you dont need to do damage such as killing stuff, your damage is by forcing him to make units before he gets the critical amount of drones so early that he can just make units for the rest of the games, attack and kill you
all this (that i said) rather than just throwing down your nexus and dont show any signs of aggression to the zerg is the best way to go about securing your 3rd.
so if you 4gate zealot, if you force 8 roaches and 12 lings on the production tab, if you then go onto losing 7-9 gateway units while "forcing zerg units", then it doesnt pay off cause you lost a bunch of units. your not really forcing zerg to make units if he manages to kill your stuff in the process. the point is to show it and force units without actually losing units.
so if you have trouble defend against zergs who max out on 48 drones on minerals and 15 drones mining (63 drones in total) then you need to force him to make units before he gets to 63 drones
my suggestion to tosses who want to learn how to defend 3base toss is to actually practice a ton and ton of different 2base allins and learn exactly the drone count zerg needs to defend the different 2base allins you do. then make similar macro oriented builds where you display the same threats to the zergs eye (so he will think its that allin) but instead back off and take ur 3rd.
fake impressions and forcing zergs unit/drone balance is a very complicated thing and it takes alot of practice and knowledge about the matchup to do right
ill say a rather standard way to do it safely but still very fast and solid. go for the 4gate +1 stargate (your stargate should go down at 6:20, gates at 7:00 and your first 4 zealot warpin at 8:10~), then with your next 400 minerals put down your 3rd nexus and make a robo, sentries (at home). the 4 zealots should be warped in as close as possible to their 3rd (normally right outside the creep) robo finishes and try get out the observer asap and 3 immortals and 3 phoenixes. add a few gates to your 3rd base and a cannon if u like.
so now you should be on 7gates and have about 8 sentries and 3 immortals (also a ton of stalkers), not to mention the voidray and the 3 phoenixes that you must have kept alive. you forced alot of units before he got to his 63 drones with and u also forced 3 spores and a bunch of extra queens)
there is no way for zerg to max out that fast on roaches and there is really no timing window where he should be able to kill you. this is just 1 example build how to get ur 3rd up, but there is over 10 different ways.
just focus on learning the standard basics of forcing zerg to make units without you losing units at the same time ur taking a 3rd and youll be more than fine
and to emphasis on what you said that they have more success killing zerg with 2base than securing 3base is because of what i talked about. the zerg plays too greedy early on and dies to 2base, if he doesnt die then he gets an advantage which he uses to hit a timing to kill protoss later instead.
so assume zergs played more safe and never died to 2base, then they wouldnt have this timing window to just go kill protoss that tries to secure a 3rd. makes sense right?
i read the other comments about the timing of the 3rd base. you might naturally think the later you take your 3rd base the safer it is, thats not actually true. if your doing a 2base attack on 13 minutes against a zerg, thats too late and hes just going to kill you easily. because he had been gaining so much more money from 3base than u been mining from 2base. so take that thought into your 3rd nexus completes at 13 minutes. now how are you supposed to defend a zerg when he has been mining from 3base for all that time? you want to take your 3rd nexus as early as possible and make it kick in BEFORE zerg actually can attack. in that way you get more units more everything.
a quick 3rd is considered around 8:00, a normally timed one is between 9 and 10 minutes. 12+ probably just means your bad. you cant take such a late 3rd and expect to defend the zerg rallying thats been mining from full 3base for 4-5 minutes
its not a simple task to defend a 3rd base as protoss safely, but trust me its even harder for zerg to do so
On April 25 2012 01:31 Excludos wrote: I don't think you're being entierly fair here. You're pretty much just saying every single protoss player is bad.
well if you look at the gsl statistics its actually <30% winratio for zerg for 2 seasons now in zvp
and its much more likely that its protosses outside korea being bad rather than korean zergs being bad
coming from korea was there for 3-4 months practicing alot especially with sage (whos expert mu is pvz) he didnt have much troubles taking and securing 3rd base defending vs mass roach ling attacks. also he never just took the 3rd without doing pressure or harassment at the same time
so far in europe, practicing on the ladder and tournament games the eu tosses play alot more passive when they are playing macro style and i think thats the key reason they have hard times against zergs
Morrow, I think pretty much everything you have said has been spot on especially the part about applying pressure to force units but not really "attacking" or "losing" much. One thing that I don't quite understand is how you can do a Voidray Zealot pressure, then back off and take your third. 4 zealots and lets say a VR and 2 phoenix wont do much at all. The roaches will come out destroy the zealots and best you get is a queen or 2. Yes, I do understand that the point is to make units and by doing that they are not droning but do you really think this is "enough" to be safe while taking lets say a 10 minute third?
In theory, I agree with everything you are saying so don't take this the wrong way i'm simply trying to understand. Currently I"m just doing a stargate pressure (1 vr and a few phoenix) into a 9:30ish minute third. While i'm doing that i'm adding a robo and getting pure sentry and by time my third is up a total of about 8 gates. Sometimes I get a few queens and sometimes I don't. I think I might do some 4 gate pressure with a VR because it seems with JUST a stragate you don't get them to make units but rather just a FEW spores and some queens. Anyway i'm rambling but yeah, I do agree with you i'm just not 100% it really works.
On April 25 2012 00:19 MorroW wrote: i think this "build order" is just an example of what happens if you let zerg drone to the exact amounts and then only pump units
its obvious zerg will be in a great shape and has a silly amounts of units if he makes pure drones => pure units
if ur a toss and have trouble against zerg just getting way ahead in economy and then just runs u over with sick amounts of units. try manipulating his drone unit balance while taking a 3rd base. the more ur able to make zerg go unit,drone,unit drone etc the slower he will reach the 200 food mark.
a standard build you can do is 3 zealot pressure first from ur initial gateway and then 4gate (8:00minute) to force out a ton of units out of zerg before he gets the drone count he wants to. and then take ur 3rd base without actually ever losing or killing too many units. just being in zergs face gives him enough of a threat to build units when he doesnt want to
if u do this correctly you should be able to hold 3base rather easily
it should be obvious to everyone whos familiar with zerg at this point that if zerg makes only drones then only units his army will outnumber the other 2 races very heavily
stephano has great success because mostly tosses in eu are bad in general but also they either go for a 2base attack, and really attacks (and ofcourse that fails cause stephano only makes units at that point to respond) or they just sit passively and let him drone how he wants and then they take 3base and are clueless why they cant defend it.
to put it short, you need to be in zergs face, and manipulate his drone unit balance very much throughout the game. zergs greatest strenght is that he can focus only drone or only unit, so you cant let him do it exactly how he wants to
I don't think you're being entierly fair here. You're pretty much just saying every single protoss player is bad. Putting pressure on the zerg is nothing new in PvZ. Everyone has experimented with all kinds of different pressure, and some have been successful for a while (like +1 4gate zealots with either voidrays or DTs). But in the end zerg manages to figure it out and stop it easily.
The reason most tosses these days goes for a 2base allin attack is because thats what they're having most success with, not because they've never tried anything else.
yes. ofcourse zergs figure out how to stop it and so on. the point is your making units and showing them as aggression to the zerg (units that you would already need to defend ur 3rd anyway, so your basically investing nothing into your attack) while zerg has to respond by investing into things other than drones, which makes his eventual mass attack with roaches or whatever on you much much easier to defend
the point im trying to make is you dont need to do damage such as killing stuff, your damage is by forcing him to make units before he gets the critical amount of drones so early that he can just make units for the rest of the games, attack and kill you
all this (that i said) rather than just throwing down your nexus and dont show any signs of aggression to the zerg is the best way to go about securing your 3rd.
so if you 4gate zealot, if you force 8 roaches and 12 lings on the production tab, if you then go onto losing 7-9 gateway units while "forcing zerg units", then it doesnt pay off cause you lost a bunch of units. your not really forcing zerg to make units if he manages to kill your stuff in the process. the point is to show it and force units without actually losing units.
so if you have trouble defend against zergs who max out on 48 drones on minerals and 15 drones mining (63 drones in total) then you need to force him to make units before he gets to 63 drones
my suggestion to tosses who want to learn how to defend 3base toss is to actually practice a ton and ton of different 2base allins and learn exactly the drone count zerg needs to defend the different 2base allins you do. then make similar macro oriented builds where you display the same threats to the zergs eye (so he will think its that allin) but instead back off and take ur 3rd.
fake impressions and forcing zergs unit/drone balance is a very complicated thing and it takes alot of practice and knowledge about the matchup to do right
ill say a rather standard way to do it safely but still very fast and solid. go for the 4gate +1 stargate (your stargate should go down at 6:20, gates at 7:00 and your first 4 zealot warpin at 8:10~), then with your next 400 minerals put down your 3rd nexus and make a robo, sentries (at home). the 4 zealots should be warped in as close as possible to their 3rd (normally right outside the creep) robo finishes and try get out the observer asap and 3 immortals and 3 phoenixes. add a few gates to your 3rd base and a cannon if u like.
so now you should be on 7gates and have about 8 sentries and 3 immortals (also a ton of stalkers), not to mention the voidray and the 3 phoenixes that you must have kept alive. you forced alot of units before he got to his 63 drones with and u also forced 3 spores and a bunch of extra queens)
there is no way for zerg to max out that fast on roaches and there is really no timing window where he should be able to kill you. this is just 1 example build how to get ur 3rd up, but there is over 10 different ways.
just focus on learning the standard basics of forcing zerg to make units without you losing units at the same time ur taking a 3rd and youll be more than fine
and to emphasis on what you said that they have more success killing zerg with 2base than securing 3base is because of what i talked about. the zerg plays too greedy early on and dies to 2base, if he doesnt die then he gets an advantage which he uses to hit a timing to kill protoss later instead.
so assume zergs played more safe and never died to 2base, then they wouldnt have this timing window to just go kill protoss that tries to secure a 3rd. makes sense right?
i read the other comments about the timing of the 3rd base. you might naturally think the later you take your 3rd base the safer it is, thats not actually true. if your doing a 2base attack on 13 minutes against a zerg, thats too late and hes just going to kill you easily. because he had been gaining so much more money from 3base than u been mining from 2base. so take that thought into your 3rd nexus completes at 13 minutes. now how are you supposed to defend a zerg when he has been mining from 3base for all that time? you want to take your 3rd nexus as early as possible and make it kick in BEFORE zerg actually can attack. in that way you get more units more everything.
a quick 3rd is considered around 8:00, a normally timed one is between 9 and 10 minutes. 12+ probably just means your bad. you cant take such a late 3rd and expect to defend the zerg rallying thats been mining from full 3base for 4-5 minutes
its not a simple task to defend a 3rd base as protoss safely, but trust me its even harder for zerg to do so
On April 25 2012 01:31 Excludos wrote: I don't think you're being entierly fair here. You're pretty much just saying every single protoss player is bad.
well if you look at the gsl statistics its actually <30% winratio for zerg for 2 seasons now in zvp
and its much more likely that its protosses outside korea being bad rather than korean zergs being bad
coming from korea was there for 3-4 months practicing alot especially with sage (whos expert mu is pvz) he didnt have much troubles taking and securing 3rd base defending vs mass roach ling attacks. also he never just took the 3rd without doing pressure or harassment at the same time
so far in europe, practicing on the ladder and tournament games the eu tosses play alot more passive when they are playing macro style and i think thats the key reason they have hard times against zergs
Morrow, I think pretty much everything you have said has been spot on especially the part about applying pressure to force units but not really "attacking" or "losing" much. One thing that I don't quite understand is how you can do a Voidray Zealot pressure, then back off and take your third. 4 zealots and lets say a VR and 2 phoenix wont do much at all. The roaches will come out destroy the zealots and best you get is a queen or 2. Yes, I do understand that the point is to make units and by doing that they are not droning but do you really think this is "enough" to be safe while taking lets say a 10 minute third?
In theory, I agree with everything you are saying so don't take this the wrong way i'm simply trying to understand. Currently I"m just doing a stargate pressure (1 vr and a few phoenix) into a 9:30ish minute third. While i'm doing that i'm adding a robo and getting pure sentry and by time my third is up a total of about 8 gates. Sometimes I get a few queens and sometimes I don't. I think I might do some 4 gate pressure with a VR because it seems with JUST a stragate you don't get them to make units but rather just a FEW spores and some queens. Anyway i'm rambling but yeah, I do agree with you i'm just not 100% it really works.
The problem with 4gate pressure it getting the proxy up in time to make sure you're hitting with those zealots by 8min. Most zergs prefer to drone past the 8min mark, so forcing them to produce those extra 8~ roaches can really delay their roach/ling aggression off 4hatcheries.
On April 26 2012 02:54 Borkbokbork wrote: I love this but I think it's really sad that the game has devolved into maxing out on one unit and attacking.
relax this shouldnt actually work. as i said earlier its just a showcase of using a zerg drone advantage to put it only into brute force and just pushing to win
u can do the same for any race really, if you great damage with protoss in midgame and get big enough advantage you can make pure blink stalkers for the rest of the game to just win
this game develops in the right way and people are finding more playstyles and using more and more unit compositions. this max out on roaches is nothing new and people did it long before stephano was famous
Im low diamond (but my ZvP probably at plat lvl...) and after reading this I feel like the most stupid zerg in the world. Every toss complains about how strong and unbeatable this is, but I cant seem to get it working... If the protoss is on two bases and just keeps producing immortals he's got about 3+ when I attack his base. Perhaps I'm just macroing really bad, cause I've been on a hell of a tilt the past weeks, but his immortals are just eating my roaches...
On April 27 2012 21:17 Gn4m wrote: Im low diamond (but my ZvP probably at plat lvl...) and after reading this I feel like the most stupid zerg in the world. Every toss complains about how strong and unbeatable this is, but I cant seem to get it working... If the protoss is on two bases and just keeps producing immortals he's got about 3+ when I attack his base. Perhaps I'm just macroing really bad, cause I've been on a hell of a tilt the past weeks, but his immortals are just eating my roaches...
Do food benchmarking at 5 6 7 and 8 minutes. See if you are consistent and get 70+ food at 8 minutes. That's the only way to find out where you go wrong.
On April 27 2012 21:17 Gn4m wrote: Im low diamond (but my ZvP probably at plat lvl...) and after reading this I feel like the most stupid zerg in the world. Every toss complains about how strong and unbeatable this is, but I cant seem to get it working... If the protoss is on two bases and just keeps producing immortals he's got about 3+ when I attack his base. Perhaps I'm just macroing really bad, cause I've been on a hell of a tilt the past weeks, but his immortals are just eating my roaches...
This is what happen to me also. Protoss camp in his base making immortals. Im outside maxed, and cant do anything so I have to try and get my tech up. But its too late, when protoss push I just die.
On April 27 2012 21:17 Gn4m wrote: Im low diamond (but my ZvP probably at plat lvl...) and after reading this I feel like the most stupid zerg in the world. Every toss complains about how strong and unbeatable this is, but I cant seem to get it working... If the protoss is on two bases and just keeps producing immortals he's got about 3+ when I attack his base. Perhaps I'm just macroing really bad, cause I've been on a hell of a tilt the past weeks, but his immortals are just eating my roaches...
This is what happen to me also. Protoss camp in his base making immortals. Im outside maxed, and cant do anything so I have to try and get my tech up. But its too late, when protoss push I just die.
If he's on 2base and you can't break him, just get your 5th and 6th gas, 4th base, and hive/spire when possible. If he tries to move out, trade armies just outside his base and remax (you should have some infestors already by now, just throw away a couple roaches if need be.
ta-da, you kill 30 supply with your 120 supply of roaches, remax and roaches/corruptors/infestors and fight behind spines if possible. He is on 2base so he can't reproduce quickly enough, just deny third and win.
If he gets his third up before you're maxed and can't break it though, then it becomes harder (which is why this brute-force style works sometimes, but you're behind if it doesn't).
Either way when playing this style against a fast third you have to attack on at least 2 fronts, otherwise he'll just ff the crap out of you and you'll die.
On April 27 2012 21:17 Gn4m wrote: Im low diamond (but my ZvP probably at plat lvl...) and after reading this I feel like the most stupid zerg in the world. Every toss complains about how strong and unbeatable this is, but I cant seem to get it working... If the protoss is on two bases and just keeps producing immortals he's got about 3+ when I attack his base. Perhaps I'm just macroing really bad, cause I've been on a hell of a tilt the past weeks, but his immortals are just eating my roaches...
This is what happen to me also. Protoss camp in his base making immortals. Im outside maxed, and cant do anything so I have to try and get my tech up. But its too late, when protoss push I just die.
Remember, if you fully saturate the minerals on three bases you have the economy not only to max out quickly, but constantly reinforce. That means if you're not engaging with protoss, you should be banking up a LOT of minerals. Get up to 6 gas geysers immediately, put down tons of spine crawlers, and aim to get at least 4-6 infestors out while you tech to Hive. If he attacks, you can fungal him in range of your spines. Build Infestors/Corruptors until your Greater Spire completes.
On April 26 2012 02:54 Borkbokbork wrote: I love this but I think it's really sad that the game has devolved into maxing out on one unit and attacking.
relax this shouldnt actually work. as i said earlier its just a showcase of using a zerg drone advantage to put it only into brute force and just pushing to win
u can do the same for any race really, if you great damage with protoss in midgame and get big enough advantage you can make pure blink stalkers for the rest of the game to just win
this game develops in the right way and people are finding more playstyles and using more and more unit compositions. this max out on roaches is nothing new and people did it long before stephano was famous
You might be right that this roach spam won't continue to work as well as it's working right now. But it might also turn out to be over-powered. We don't know yet. All we know is that it's a very strong build and despite significant effort, Protoss players have not yet agreed on how to beat it.
Hey guys I'm trying this style out and I have a few problems. Most Toss are good countering this with immortals, good FF, and sim city. I play at masters level and am having a real tough time against protoss. First of all how do you transition? Do you pull back and drone up + expand? And what unit comp do you transition to? I usually get infestors, and try to tech to broods, but usually they just roll in with their death ball before this happens and roll me. Even if I have infestors and roaches, I kill like 20 supply worth of units and get absolutely rolled. I'm so lost. Most games I can't even reach BL in sufficient number.
On April 26 2012 02:54 Borkbokbork wrote: I love this but I think it's really sad that the game has devolved into maxing out on one unit and attacking.
relax this shouldnt actually work. as i said earlier its just a showcase of using a zerg drone advantage to put it only into brute force and just pushing to win
u can do the same for any race really, if you great damage with protoss in midgame and get big enough advantage you can make pure blink stalkers for the rest of the game to just win
this game develops in the right way and people are finding more playstyles and using more and more unit compositions. this max out on roaches is nothing new and people did it long before stephano was famous
You might be right that this roach spam won't continue to work as well as it's working right now. But it might also turn out to be over-powered. We don't know yet. All we know is that it's a very strong build and despite significant effort, Protoss players have not yet agreed on how to beat it.
I'm hesitant to say any race is overpowered in a given matchup, it seems to have flip-flopped so many times over the patches. Though it is true that some professional Zerg players, like Stephano, say this style is OP.
is this build an effective response to a stargate opening? do you necessarily need the anti air to deny his third base, or should you grab a spire/hydralisk den before hitting 200/200 in order to do so?
ps: i am a rank 2 masters zerg. i've been having trouble with protoss players who open with a void ray and about 5 phoenix with a colossus followup. i feel that corruptors are the "correct" response to this opening, but i can never seem to deny his third base before my spire finishes building. the spire forces me to take 3 more extractors and make a lot more drones, and he's able to easily get his third base in time. I often die to a colossus/void ray deathball followup before I can get my broodlord tech out.
On May 01 2012 21:21 Nasreth wrote: is this build an effective response to a stargate opening? do you necessarily need the anti air to deny his third base, or should you grab a spire/hydralisk den before hitting 200/200 in order to do so?
ps: i am a rank 2 masters zerg. i've been having trouble with protoss players who open with a void ray and about 5 phoenix with a colossus followup. i feel that corruptors are the "correct" response to this opening, but i can never seem to deny his third base before my spire finishes building. the spire forces me to take 3 more extractors and make a lot more drones, and he's able to easily get his third base in time. I often die to a colossus/void ray deathball followup before I can get my broodlord tech out.
You don't need anti-air to deny P's third on most maps. Unless he can indefinitely forcefield you out, 1 or 2 void rays won't save his ground army and buildings.
You do need to avoid taking too much damage so that you can attack early enough that he won't have much defense. If you're attacking after 12 minutes, it's probably too late.
As a P player I really enjoyed the build and breakdown, but I think it's missing an explanation of the mentality of the build, and that, I believe, is the most critical part about it. If you macro correctly you can cause the P all sorts of distress in getting their 3rd down, delaying it repeatedly, but P can deathball up and eventually get it down. The real deadly part of this style is that while Z can remax immediately and P has to build up again, what do you do during that time window?
Attack the front! - I see some players do this because it works in lower leagues, you just "more stuff" your opponent to death. However, vs a good player you're just going to lose droves a roaches and take down a sim city gate or two. The idea is not to drown your opponent in roaches, the idea is to trade roaches in order to continue to abuse your superior economy. If you attack into P sim city you're just gonna get shot to pieces and split up by force fields, it can't effectively be done against an opponent of equal skill who doesn't make a major mistake.
Drop the back? - As far as offensive plays go I like this one, you have so many potential roaches you can afford to throw some away to cause some economic damage or take out a key tech structure further delaying P pushing out for their third.
TECH, TECH, TECH! - when you max out on roaches you're going to start stockpiling resources, throw down an infestation pit asap! Once your infestation pit is down you're about 5 minutes away from having broodlords ready to go, keep looking for opportunities to deny the third and to trade roaches for P's army, then when you feel safe, go to hive and throw down a spire, and make the tech to broodlords. P will probably get their third up before you get broods, but by this time, if all goes according to plan, you should be on 4-5 bases of gas and have broods morphing, meanwhile P is mined out (or close to) at their main, putting them actually just on a 2 base economy (+gas). If you were causing damage to the P army with your roaches during the midgame, they can NOT have the deathball backed by mothership they need to stop broods backed by constant ground pressure.
Finally, some Z seem to have trouble realizing roach armies are terrible. They're medium strong in the open, but 200/200 of roaches come into the fight pre-zoned out of fighting, its like forcefielding your own army. Similarly, infestors are very strong in the open, but they are not bunker busters, they will not eliminate a hard defensive position. You don't play this roach style to win outright with it (although I do love that frequently you will), the real punch of this style comes with its flexibility to follow up with upgrades, and eventually a deadly amount of tech.
My experience with this build is that unless the Zerg player has really low APM (lacks upgrades and good micro), or I can delay a third with cannon pressure (only viable against those same players), that there's nothing that can be done.
I've analyzed loads of replays of myself against this style and the only time I come out on top is when the other player makes big mistakes (only considering replays where my play is consistently 'good' with no major mistakes).
Early Stargate "pressure" is easily nullified with minimum cost, and Warp Prism play affects the Protoss economy as much as it affects the Zerg economy.
Protoss desperately need an air unit that can attack the ground, doesn't take forever to produce, is quick and good against Mutas, and basically just isn't a Void Ray.
I'm no expert - these are just my thoughts as a result of my experiences playing a lot of this game.
i think u can beat this with 3 gate robo expand after fe and follow with 5 more gates and tech 2 blink u should have 142 supply when your macro is good and that should be a easy hold with 4 immortals
On April 26 2012 02:54 Borkbokbork wrote: I love this but I think it's really sad that the game has devolved into maxing out on one unit and attacking.
relax this shouldnt actually work. as i said earlier its just a showcase of using a zerg drone advantage to put it only into brute force and just pushing to win
u can do the same for any race really, if you great damage with protoss in midgame and get big enough advantage you can make pure blink stalkers for the rest of the game to just win
this game develops in the right way and people are finding more playstyles and using more and more unit compositions. this max out on roaches is nothing new and people did it long before stephano was famous
You might be right that this roach spam won't continue to work as well as it's working right now. But it might also turn out to be over-powered. We don't know yet. All we know is that it's a very strong build and despite significant effort, Protoss players have not yet agreed on how to beat it.
Well, Morrow just said that the Koreans have no trouble beating it and that Sage holds his third extremely easily (Code B Protoss). Considering you have the best macroers in the world in KR, you would expect this build to see some use but I barely ever see it in GSL or ESV. Nestea maxes with 70 drones, 4 bases, +1, burrow and spire at 11:30, yet he sparingly uses this build.
The build is just the ultimate punisher for people who can't pressure and expand, impose map dominance and scare the Zerg. Slow roaches and slow lings cannot do anything but defend. So warp in +1 zealots and retreat. Terran players feign tank pushes vs speedling baneling, clear creep and leave. 2 rax's entire ideology is to pressure. You can make 7 marines and do nothing but wonder around the map after the bunker rush fails. Zergs will sometimes make up to 25 lings just to be safe vs followup marine scv all ins.
I've found that the best way to be aggressive with your units is to grab drop tech. After you've maxed, dropped your 4th base, and gotten your 4th extractor, you can squeeze in the cost of this tech quite easily. Protoss players seem to have a LOT of trouble with multi-pronged attacks, and I would say the majority of the time I've been able to do a lot of damage to their infrastructure and economy by timing my drop as soon as he moves out to take his third base. The best part is, if you drop enough roaches in his main, you can force him to bring his entire army back to defend leaving his third bare for you to snipe it again with a small handful of units. With burrow and tunnelling claws you can try to hide units in the corner of his base for sneak attacks later on when he thinks he's safe, which is also a great delay tactic if he looks to be moving out.
I've been away from SC2 for a few months and managed to miss the rise of Stephano's build over FFE.
Can someone please tell me what is the current metagame around it? Esp. concerning Plat/Dia league? I see lots of Protosses complaining about Roaches on the official forums, which I guess means the build is still alive and kicking, but then again if now every Zerg and his grandmother does this it would alse be logical that Tosses have adapted. And I kinda hate coming late to the party..
So.. should I be learning this or would I be better off with some other shennanigans, like faking it and going muta or something? Thanks!
I've been away from SC2 for a few months and managed to miss the rise of Stephano's build over FFE.
Can someone please tell me what is the current metagame around it? Esp. concerning Plat/Dia league? I see lots of Protosses complaining about Roaches on the official forums, which I guess means the build is still alive and kicking, but then again if now every Zerg and his grandmother does this it would alse be logical that Tosses have adapted. And I kinda hate coming late to the party..
So.. should I be learning this or would I be better off with some other shennanigans, like faking it and going muta or something? Thanks!
The metagame shifted from a muta harass-intensive style to huge roach pressure to try and deny third and a late game composition of infestor/broodlord.
Toss have been adapting, but like many tosses in plat/diamond their macro isn't that great. Simply maxing on roaches at 11:30-12 minutes can outright win the game if the toss has macro slips or they're doing a strange build order.
This style has become a LOT more popular in the last few months, so many of my toss opponents will blindly go mass sentry/immortal anticipating a roach attack. Certainly faking an attack and going muta can be effective against an opponent of any level, especially since the toss response to muta is so much different than max roaches.
Something I've also seen a lot more is air-centered builds. Roaches can't shoot up and a 2 stargate air attack will hit long before you're maxed. A couple days ago I played 2 ZvP's in a row where the toss built 4-6 void rays (one went all-in, the other tried a blink stalker transition behind canons. In both instances I had about 150 supply of roaches, so I just barreled down the front door and dealt crippling damage and won with the hydra/roach follow-up. This is an example of beating a strange build with the solid macro this strategy enables.
Don't forget that a large portion of lower league tosses do 2 base all-ins. I've been seeing more of these from my plat/diamond opponents in the last few months. I am definitely attributing this as a response to mass roach play.
I've been away from SC2 for a few months and managed to miss the rise of Stephano's build over FFE.
Can someone please tell me what is the current metagame around it? Esp. concerning Plat/Dia league? I see lots of Protosses complaining about Roaches on the official forums, which I guess means the build is still alive and kicking, but then again if now every Zerg and his grandmother does this it would alse be logical that Tosses have adapted. And I kinda hate coming late to the party..
So.. should I be learning this or would I be better off with some other shennanigans, like faking it and going muta or something? Thanks!
The metagame shifted from a muta harass-intensive style to huge roach pressure to try and deny third and a late game composition of infestor/broodlord.
Toss have been adapting, but like many tosses in plat/diamond their macro isn't that great. Simply maxing on roaches at 11:30-12 minutes can outright win the game if the toss has macro slips or they're doing a strange build order.
This style has become a LOT more popular in the last few months, so many of my toss opponents will blindly go mass sentry/immortal anticipating a roach attack. Certainly faking an attack and going muta can be effective against an opponent of any level, especially since the toss response to muta is so much different than max roaches.
Something I've also seen a lot more is air-centered builds. Roaches can't shoot up and a 2 stargate air attack will hit long before you're maxed. A couple days ago I played 2 ZvP's in a row where the toss built 4-6 void rays (one went all-in, the other tried a blink stalker transition behind canons. In both instances I had about 150 supply of roaches, so I just barreled down the front door and dealt crippling damage and won with the hydra/roach follow-up. This is an example of beating a strange build with the solid macro this strategy enables.
Don't forget that a large portion of lower league tosses do 2 base all-ins. I've been seeing more of these from my plat/diamond opponents in the last few months. I am definitely attributing this as a response to mass roach play.
I rarely go mutas in this matchup anymore, but I have been experimenting with a much earlier hive. Going for 5 gases instead of 4 allows you to support the heavy roach production to pressure the third, but also allows you to get a faster infestation pit. Then you can time your 4th base and additional geysers accordingly, aiming for about 75 drones with all 8 geysers. When you start hive tech, start a spire.
A tip if you're aiming towards the late game - upgrade melee/carapace instead of roach attack.
nothing like overwhelming people with ling/infestor. i have more success with this style than bling/ling muta. get those melee upgrades and zerg your opponent to death
Also to be fair @ Stephano saying that max roach is imba, what Korean toss has he beaten in a BoX? He lost to MC in that recent showmatch (sure he was up but he lost, and being up 3-2 in a Bo9 doesn't equate winning a Bo5, as in a Bo5 MC probably plays different strategies), and I went through his whole TLPD and looked at his vs any korean toss record and I counted:
Hero 1-2 JYP 2-1 Inori 5-3 (1-2, 2-0, 2-1) MC 0-4 (not counting recent showmatch, brings it to 3-9?) TAiLs 2-2
13-17 overall.
Sure it doesn't mean too much, the games were over a long period of time and etc etc. but still, until he can dominate Korean toss as well as EU toss, it just supports what Morrows saying about EU toss being bad. I mean for the longest time all Toss had to do was turtle into a deathball and then win (add on a mothership), or 2base allin, so it wouldn't be surprising if they were too turtely. KCDC you're obviously posting everywhere saying you can't handle it (as evidenced by your 60page thread) but maybe you're just bad vs Zerg? Also, given your apparent high winrates vs Terran (per your PvT thread, and assuming you win decently against Toss, your wins against Toss and Terran put you against really good Zergs, but if you suck at vZ you lose, and then win against other races, so keep matching good Zergs who beat you). I mean Korean toss have the same units you do but they're winning just fine vs Zerg as per Morrow.
The same can also be applied to EU terrans being bad and that's why so much TvP imba complaining (iirc the winrates aren't so bad in Korea), and I'm a terran player. I mean I look at TvP and have no clue how to win but I'm just really bad so that's probably why. Everyone whines to balance around the top players, and obviously these players are in Korea, so shouldn't you look at KR winrates, not EU winrates?
Basically my rant boils down to - 1a.Korean toss don't seem to have trouble PvZ 1b.Korean terran don't seem to have trouble TvP 2.TvP and PvZ seem hard for non-korean 3.non-korean suck 4.TvP and PvZ are fine 5.balance around Koreans because everyone says balance around the top 6.people say balance around the top and then like to think they're near top by being GM NA server or EU server. 7.^said people mostly actually suck compared to koreans so don't balance around them. 8.Just imagine if we didn't have split servers and had to play vs Kr players daily basis, you think you'd still be high masters? Even with masters being much larger (2% of a larger population if servers were unified), it'd probably be hilarious and we'd all end up minus 2 leagues.
On May 06 2012 07:50 teamamerica wrote: Also to be fair @ Stephano saying that max roach is imba, what Korean toss has he beaten in a BoX? He lost to MC in that recent showmatch (sure he was up but he lost, and being up 3-2 in a Bo9 doesn't equate winning a Bo5, as in a Bo5 MC probably plays different strategies), and I went through his whole TLPD and looked at his vs any korean toss record and I counted:
Hero 1-2 JYP 2-1 Inori 5-3 (1-2, 2-0, 2-1) MC 0-4 (not counting recent showmatch, brings it to 3-9?) TAiLs 2-2
13-17 overall.
Sure it doesn't mean too much, the games were over a long period of time and etc etc. but still, until he can dominate Korean toss as well as EU toss, it just supports what Morrows saying about EU toss being bad. I mean for the longest time all Toss had to do was turtle into a deathball and then win (add on a mothership), or 2base allin, so it wouldn't be surprising if they were too turtely. KCDC you're obviously posting everywhere saying you can't handle it (as evidenced by your 60page thread) but maybe you're just bad vs Zerg? Also, given your apparent high winrates vs Terran (per your PvT thread, and assuming you win decently against Toss, your wins against Toss and Terran put you against really good Zergs, but if you suck at vZ you lose, and then win against other races, so keep matching good Zergs who beat you). I mean Korean toss have the same units you do but they're winning just fine vs Zerg as per Morrow.
The same can also be applied to EU terrans being bad and that's why so much TvP imba complaining (iirc the winrates aren't so bad in Korea), and I'm a terran player. I mean I look at TvP and have no clue how to win but I'm just really bad so that's probably why. Everyone whines to balance around the top players, and obviously these players are in Korea, so shouldn't you look at KR winrates, not EU winrates?
Basically my rant boils down to - 1a.Korean toss don't seem to have trouble PvZ 1b.Korean terran don't seem to have trouble TvP 2.TvP and PvZ seem hard for non-korean 3.non-korean suck 4.TvP and PvZ are fine 5.balance around Koreans because everyone says balance around the top 6.people say balance around the top and then like to think they're near top by being GM NA server or EU server. 7.^said people mostly actually suck compared to koreans so don't balance around them. 8.Just imagine if we didn't have split servers and had to play vs Kr players daily basis, you think you'd still be high masters? Even with masters being much larger (2% of a larger population if servers were unified), it'd probably be hilarious and we'd all end up minus 2 leagues.
While most of this post is whiny garbage that really isn't useful, the biggest thing to debate regarding this style is how toss is supposed to secure a third without dying to roach spam. Not sure if you actually watched MC vs Stephano, but MC relied heavily on 2 base timings a lot of which Stephano did not scout.
On May 06 2012 07:50 teamamerica wrote: Also to be fair @ Stephano saying that max roach is imba, what Korean toss has he beaten in a BoX? He lost to MC in that recent showmatch (sure he was up but he lost, and being up 3-2 in a Bo9 doesn't equate winning a Bo5, as in a Bo5 MC probably plays different strategies), and I went through his whole TLPD and looked at his vs any korean toss record and I counted:
Hero 1-2 JYP 2-1 Inori 5-3 (1-2, 2-0, 2-1) MC 0-4 (not counting recent showmatch, brings it to 3-9?) TAiLs 2-2
13-17 overall.
Sure it doesn't mean too much, the games were over a long period of time and etc etc. but still, until he can dominate Korean toss as well as EU toss, it just supports what Morrows saying about EU toss being bad. I mean for the longest time all Toss had to do was turtle into a deathball and then win (add on a mothership), or 2base allin, so it wouldn't be surprising if they were too turtely. KCDC you're obviously posting everywhere saying you can't handle it (as evidenced by your 60page thread) but maybe you're just bad vs Zerg? Also, given your apparent high winrates vs Terran (per your PvT thread, and assuming you win decently against Toss, your wins against Toss and Terran put you against really good Zergs, but if you suck at vZ you lose, and then win against other races, so keep matching good Zergs who beat you). I mean Korean toss have the same units you do but they're winning just fine vs Zerg as per Morrow.
The same can also be applied to EU terrans being bad and that's why so much TvP imba complaining (iirc the winrates aren't so bad in Korea), and I'm a terran player. I mean I look at TvP and have no clue how to win but I'm just really bad so that's probably why. Everyone whines to balance around the top players, and obviously these players are in Korea, so shouldn't you look at KR winrates, not EU winrates?
Basically my rant boils down to - 1a.Korean toss don't seem to have trouble PvZ 1b.Korean terran don't seem to have trouble TvP 2.TvP and PvZ seem hard for non-korean 3.non-korean suck 4.TvP and PvZ are fine 5.balance around Koreans because everyone says balance around the top 6.people say balance around the top and then like to think they're near top by being GM NA server or EU server. 7.^said people mostly actually suck compared to koreans so don't balance around them. 8.Just imagine if we didn't have split servers and had to play vs Kr players daily basis, you think you'd still be high masters? Even with masters being much larger (2% of a larger population if servers were unified), it'd probably be hilarious and we'd all end up minus 2 leagues.
While most of this post is whiny garbage that really isn't useful, the biggest thing to debate regarding this style is how toss is supposed to secure a third without dying to roach spam. Not sure if you actually watched MC vs Stephano, but MC relied heavily on 2 base timings a lot of which Stephano did not scout.
Wtf Morrow said how. Then KCDC comes in and says toss still struggling to figure out how, and says it may or may not be imbalanced. Did you even try any of the things Morrow said?
On May 06 2012 07:50 teamamerica wrote: Also to be fair @ Stephano saying that max roach is imba, what Korean toss has he beaten in a BoX? He lost to MC in that recent showmatch (sure he was up but he lost, and being up 3-2 in a Bo9 doesn't equate winning a Bo5, as in a Bo5 MC probably plays different strategies), and I went through his whole TLPD and looked at his vs any korean toss record and I counted:
Hero 1-2 JYP 2-1 Inori 5-3 (1-2, 2-0, 2-1) MC 0-4 (not counting recent showmatch, brings it to 3-9?) TAiLs 2-2
13-17 overall.
Sure it doesn't mean too much, the games were over a long period of time and etc etc. but still, until he can dominate Korean toss as well as EU toss, it just supports what Morrows saying about EU toss being bad. I mean for the longest time all Toss had to do was turtle into a deathball and then win (add on a mothership), or 2base allin, so it wouldn't be surprising if they were too turtely. KCDC you're obviously posting everywhere saying you can't handle it (as evidenced by your 60page thread) but maybe you're just bad vs Zerg? Also, given your apparent high winrates vs Terran (per your PvT thread, and assuming you win decently against Toss, your wins against Toss and Terran put you against really good Zergs, but if you suck at vZ you lose, and then win against other races, so keep matching good Zergs who beat you). I mean Korean toss have the same units you do but they're winning just fine vs Zerg as per Morrow.
The same can also be applied to EU terrans being bad and that's why so much TvP imba complaining (iirc the winrates aren't so bad in Korea), and I'm a terran player. I mean I look at TvP and have no clue how to win but I'm just really bad so that's probably why. Everyone whines to balance around the top players, and obviously these players are in Korea, so shouldn't you look at KR winrates, not EU winrates?
Basically my rant boils down to - 1a.Korean toss don't seem to have trouble PvZ 1b.Korean terran don't seem to have trouble TvP 2.TvP and PvZ seem hard for non-korean 3.non-korean suck 4.TvP and PvZ are fine 5.balance around Koreans because everyone says balance around the top 6.people say balance around the top and then like to think they're near top by being GM NA server or EU server. 7.^said people mostly actually suck compared to koreans so don't balance around them. 8.Just imagine if we didn't have split servers and had to play vs Kr players daily basis, you think you'd still be high masters? Even with masters being much larger (2% of a larger population if servers were unified), it'd probably be hilarious and we'd all end up minus 2 leagues.
While most of this post is whiny garbage that really isn't useful, the biggest thing to debate regarding this style is how toss is supposed to secure a third without dying to roach spam. Not sure if you actually watched MC vs Stephano, but MC relied heavily on 2 base timings a lot of which Stephano did not scout.
Wtf Morrow said how. Then KCDC comes in and says toss still struggling to figure out how, and says it may or may not be imbalanced. Did you even try any of the things Morrow said?
Well to be fair, many protoss players are still struggling against this style. I think the best solution for taking a 3rd is to start playing a more aggressive/multitasking style, pressuring at all stages in the game to keep Zerg below their desired drone count.
Game 8 of MC vs Stephano is probably he best counter to Stephano style max roach I have seen so far.
He goes FFE into Stargate and uses it to get map control and takes a third while going for Colossus. The Stargate units decimate a number of Roaches while slowing down the max out by a few seconds due to Stephano putting up AA defenses.
I think there is a tiny opening where MC is vulnerable to a Hydra switch but other than that it seemed to be a solid defense. I think that is why MC goes Colossi so fast is due to the possible Hydra switch.
On May 06 2012 07:50 teamamerica wrote: Also to be fair @ Stephano saying that max roach is imba, what Korean toss has he beaten in a BoX? He lost to MC in that recent showmatch (sure he was up but he lost, and being up 3-2 in a Bo9 doesn't equate winning a Bo5, as in a Bo5 MC probably plays different strategies), and I went through his whole TLPD and looked at his vs any korean toss record and I counted:
Hero 1-2 JYP 2-1 Inori 5-3 (1-2, 2-0, 2-1) MC 0-4 (not counting recent showmatch, brings it to 3-9?) TAiLs 2-2
13-17 overall.
Sure it doesn't mean too much, the games were over a long period of time and etc etc. but still, until he can dominate Korean toss as well as EU toss, it just supports what Morrows saying about EU toss being bad. I mean for the longest time all Toss had to do was turtle into a deathball and then win (add on a mothership), or 2base allin, so it wouldn't be surprising if they were too turtely. KCDC you're obviously posting everywhere saying you can't handle it (as evidenced by your 60page thread) but maybe you're just bad vs Zerg? Also, given your apparent high winrates vs Terran (per your PvT thread, and assuming you win decently against Toss, your wins against Toss and Terran put you against really good Zergs, but if you suck at vZ you lose, and then win against other races, so keep matching good Zergs who beat you). I mean Korean toss have the same units you do but they're winning just fine vs Zerg as per Morrow.
The same can also be applied to EU terrans being bad and that's why so much TvP imba complaining (iirc the winrates aren't so bad in Korea), and I'm a terran player. I mean I look at TvP and have no clue how to win but I'm just really bad so that's probably why. Everyone whines to balance around the top players, and obviously these players are in Korea, so shouldn't you look at KR winrates, not EU winrates?
Basically my rant boils down to - 1a.Korean toss don't seem to have trouble PvZ 1b.Korean terran don't seem to have trouble TvP 2.TvP and PvZ seem hard for non-korean 3.non-korean suck 4.TvP and PvZ are fine 5.balance around Koreans because everyone says balance around the top 6.people say balance around the top and then like to think they're near top by being GM NA server or EU server. 7.^said people mostly actually suck compared to koreans so don't balance around them. 8.Just imagine if we didn't have split servers and had to play vs Kr players daily basis, you think you'd still be high masters? Even with masters being much larger (2% of a larger population if servers were unified), it'd probably be hilarious and we'd all end up minus 2 leagues.
While most of this post is whiny garbage that really isn't useful, the biggest thing to debate regarding this style is how toss is supposed to secure a third without dying to roach spam. Not sure if you actually watched MC vs Stephano, but MC relied heavily on 2 base timings a lot of which Stephano did not scout.
Wtf Morrow said how. Then KCDC comes in and says toss still struggling to figure out how, and says it may or may not be imbalanced. Did you even try any of the things Morrow said?
Morrow failed to mention how you should pressure. We don't have hellions that can pressure and run away, if protoss pressure's, and zerg builds enough units to stop it, we lose our units, and that sets us more behind (a failed +1 4 gate for example). In the end we're just hoping our opponent fucks up. Stargate maybe.
On May 06 2012 07:50 teamamerica wrote: Also to be fair @ Stephano saying that max roach is imba, what Korean toss has he beaten in a BoX? He lost to MC in that recent showmatch (sure he was up but he lost, and being up 3-2 in a Bo9 doesn't equate winning a Bo5, as in a Bo5 MC probably plays different strategies), and I went through his whole TLPD and looked at his vs any korean toss record and I counted:
Hero 1-2 JYP 2-1 Inori 5-3 (1-2, 2-0, 2-1) MC 0-4 (not counting recent showmatch, brings it to 3-9?) TAiLs 2-2
13-17 overall.
Sure it doesn't mean too much, the games were over a long period of time and etc etc. but still, until he can dominate Korean toss as well as EU toss, it just supports what Morrows saying about EU toss being bad. I mean for the longest time all Toss had to do was turtle into a deathball and then win (add on a mothership), or 2base allin, so it wouldn't be surprising if they were too turtely. KCDC you're obviously posting everywhere saying you can't handle it (as evidenced by your 60page thread) but maybe you're just bad vs Zerg? Also, given your apparent high winrates vs Terran (per your PvT thread, and assuming you win decently against Toss, your wins against Toss and Terran put you against really good Zergs, but if you suck at vZ you lose, and then win against other races, so keep matching good Zergs who beat you). I mean Korean toss have the same units you do but they're winning just fine vs Zerg as per Morrow.
The same can also be applied to EU terrans being bad and that's why so much TvP imba complaining (iirc the winrates aren't so bad in Korea), and I'm a terran player. I mean I look at TvP and have no clue how to win but I'm just really bad so that's probably why. Everyone whines to balance around the top players, and obviously these players are in Korea, so shouldn't you look at KR winrates, not EU winrates?
Basically my rant boils down to - 1a.Korean toss don't seem to have trouble PvZ 1b.Korean terran don't seem to have trouble TvP 2.TvP and PvZ seem hard for non-korean 3.non-korean suck 4.TvP and PvZ are fine 5.balance around Koreans because everyone says balance around the top 6.people say balance around the top and then like to think they're near top by being GM NA server or EU server. 7.^said people mostly actually suck compared to koreans so don't balance around them. 8.Just imagine if we didn't have split servers and had to play vs Kr players daily basis, you think you'd still be high masters? Even with masters being much larger (2% of a larger population if servers were unified), it'd probably be hilarious and we'd all end up minus 2 leagues.
While most of this post is whiny garbage that really isn't useful, the biggest thing to debate regarding this style is how toss is supposed to secure a third without dying to roach spam. Not sure if you actually watched MC vs Stephano, but MC relied heavily on 2 base timings a lot of which Stephano did not scout.
Wtf Morrow said how. Then KCDC comes in and says toss still struggling to figure out how, and says it may or may not be imbalanced. Did you even try any of the things Morrow said?
Morrow failed to mention how you should pressure. We don't have hellions that can pressure and run away, if protoss pressure's, and zerg builds enough units to stop it, we lose our units, and that sets us more behind (a failed +1 4 gate for example). In the end we're just hoping our opponent fucks up. Stargate maybe.
I believe he suggested doing some sort of early pressure (2-3 Zealots or Zealot/Stalker) followed by a 4gate Zealot timing at 8:00. It's not necessary to kill the hatchery or the queens/drones, it's just to force Zerg to produce units they don't want to create so early.
This build was good, it has its use and is very punishing if not scouted directly, but zergs have been getting annihilated using this mass roach build against good korean protoss players (which means its only a matter of time before that transfers to the rest of players). Maxing on roaches is only good at the 12 minute mark, after that its just wasted supply for zerg as its too easy for the protoss to deal with it.
This max roach style is very bad on both tech and upgrades, if the roach/ling pushes can't do significant damage within a few rounds of reinforcements, zerg has nothing to deal with a protoss counter push with many collossi in the mix. Zerg's upgrades are horrendous, and trying to jump from poorly upgraded roach/ling directly to broodlords leaves a huge window of vulnerability where the broodlords are not ready, and the roach/ling army is no match for the protoss army. Think of this strategy as a lesser all-in from zerg, he is sacrificing future tech and upgrades to make a huge army quickly, and if the attack fails, he is quite behind and very hard to survive a high tech protoss push with well upgraded units.
There are many ways to pressure the zerg early to delay his economy. I really like (hate) a strong 4 gate push, it forces roaches almost right after zerg's third comes up, zerg should have no more than 50 drones at that point or he could simply die. Stargate play is also good, but you have to add phoenixes to the mix, voidrays/zealot by themselves cannot hold zerg at bay. Whatever variation you choose, just keep a keen eye on zerg's army size, as long as you have the advantage, keep pressuring, but as soon as the army sizes start to look even, you should know that the next round of zerg reinforcements will crush you, so run like hell and turtle to mass collossi, survive a few waves of roaches, and push once you have 6 collossi to end the game. You really have to play the zerg side to understand how difficult it is to transition out of this mass roach style.
On May 10 2012 06:07 w3jjjj wrote: This max roach style is very bad on both tech and upgrades, if the roach/ling pushes can't do significant damage within a few rounds of reinforcements, zerg has nothing to deal with a protoss counter push with many collossi in the mix.
Well this isn't necessarily true. With the mass roach style, you have two chances to kill the protoss army - once on the other side of the map near his base, next when he moves onto creep near yours. There are also more 5-6 gas variations developing, with a 10:30/11:00 spire, which means you can mix corruptors into your roach army at a reasonable time to better engage those collossi armies.
People say that players like Sage have figured this style out, and yet I've seen Sage, Lure, Weekend, and many other Protoss players all get destroyed by this style in the Korean Weekly.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
i think kiwikaki or nani (dunno) says dt s
Really? With such an early lair, I don't see how DTs are the answer. Most players will scout the expansion gas and know they need some form of detection, and a lot of Zergs morph an overseer to scout when the lair is done.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
i think kiwikaki or nani (dunno) says dt s
Really? With such an early lair, I don't see how DTs are the answer. Most players will scout the expansion gas and know they need some form of detection, and a lot of Zergs morph an overseer to scout when the lair is done.
I remember Axslav saying that you deal with this by having good mechanics, force field, and an mix of stalker sentry with a few immortals.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
i think kiwikaki or nani (dunno) says dt s
Really? With such an early lair, I don't see how DTs are the answer. Most players will scout the expansion gas and know they need some form of detection, and a lot of Zergs morph an overseer to scout when the lair is done.
^ this.
I think the gas at P's natural would be a dead give-away that DT is on the way. Also we could just as easily stick 1 spore at each base if we suspected such play. Not a huge hit to the economy and we can still play the same style while you invested a lot into dt rushing which doesn't do any serious damage.
On May 10 2012 21:17 Chelch wrote: People say that players like Sage have figured this style out, and yet I've seen Sage, Lure, Weekend, and many other Protoss players all get destroyed by this style in the Korean Weekly.
mostly because when the zerg is attacking the pressure is mostly on the protoss to defend well. in this specific situation it is much easier to be on the attacking end than the defending end. in this particular scenario, zerg isn't looking to trade efficiently and can be relatively careless with their units compared to protoss, which needs to play much more perfect.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
i think kiwikaki or nani (dunno) says dt s
Really? With such an early lair, I don't see how DTs are the answer. Most players will scout the expansion gas and know they need some form of detection, and a lot of Zergs morph an overseer to scout when the lair is done.
I remember Axslav saying that you deal with this by having good mechanics, force field, and an mix of stalker sentry with a few immortals.
Yeah basically this, good positioning,wall off third with gateways and cannons,etc,spliting off army to prevent multi-pronged attacks.
However, i have seen Symbol do a variation of this build where he go for drops at the main and do a attack at the third. He completely smashed MC with that build.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
i think kiwikaki or nani (dunno) says dt s
Really? With such an early lair, I don't see how DTs are the answer. Most players will scout the expansion gas and know they need some form of detection, and a lot of Zergs morph an overseer to scout when the lair is done.
^ this.
I think the gas at P's natural would be a dead give-away that DT is on the way. Also we could just as easily stick 1 spore at each base if we suspected such play. Not a huge hit to the economy and we can still play the same style while you invested a lot into dt rushing which doesn't do any serious damage.
Yeah either DTs or double stargate. A common response to both is a spore at the natural and 3rd.
On May 30 2012 12:02 Falcon-sw wrote: I've seen +2 blink stalkers at around 10 minutes destroy pro zergs using this strategy. Blink is just too cost effective if you have good micro.
You mean the timing attack? I always feel that all in is really weak. If it gets crushed with lings and a few roaches early then you're basically dead. See Jangbi vs Soulkey in proleague. Jangbi literally had perfect blink micro, but it got crushed.
On May 30 2012 12:02 Falcon-sw wrote: I've seen +2 blink stalkers at around 10 minutes destroy pro zergs using this strategy. Blink is just too cost effective if you have good micro.
Problem with this is you're just crossing your fingers and hoping you don't get fungled. If they land just 1 or 2 fungals, you loose the game. You will never be able to take a 3rd after you loose a ball of stalkers at that time. I was doing early zealot aggression to slow things down for the zerg, but because of the queen buff it's just not viable. The queen can just hide behind the mineral line and pick off zealots with a few drones blocking, while lings are made.
I am starting to really dislike pvz nowadays. So many people are using this style, all protoss can do against it is 2 base all in or turtle and 3 base all in. Either way you are playing from behind, and if the zerg scouts properly they can prepare and defend either play. They will have hive tech by the time your 3 base play hits anyway. It's also very hard to know if the zerg is about to all in you, well I shouldn't say "all in" I guess. With this style zerg can afford to throw away an entire army to deny the protoss 3rd but it doesn't put them all in. They can remake the army before you get across the map because they are already on 3 fully saturated bases. It really feels like you have to count on zerg making blunders or just having bad scouting.
It's not really a balance issue, you have a fair chance at winning with a 2 or 3 base all in as protoss. What I really don't like is that you can only expect your odds to get worse after that point. Playing into the late game against a zerg on hive tech, who's been ahead on econ the whole game isn't fun. At that point you're hoping on an archon toilet to win, and hoping the zerg is incompetent enough to stack all his units for a vortex.
I used to really enjoy those epic split map wars of positioning, tech switches, and late game harass. Rarely, if ever, get games like that anymore.
On May 30 2012 12:02 Falcon-sw wrote: I've seen +2 blink stalkers at around 10 minutes destroy pro zergs using this strategy. Blink is just too cost effective if you have good micro.
Problem with this is you're just crossing your fingers and hoping you don't get fungled. If they land just 1 or 2 fungals, you loose the game. You will never be able to take a 3rd after you loose a ball of stalkers at that time. I was doing early zealot aggression to slow things down for the zerg, but because of the queen buff it's just not viable. The queen can just hide behind the mineral line and pick off zealots with a few drones blocking, while lings are made.
I am starting to really dislike pvz nowadays. So many people are using this style, all protoss can do against it is 2 base all in or turtle and 3 base all in. Either way you are playing from behind, and if the zerg scouts properly they can prepare and defend either play. They will have hive tech by the time your 3 base play hits anyway. It's also very hard to know if the zerg is about to all in you, well I shouldn't say "all in" I guess. With this style zerg can afford to throw away an entire army to deny the protoss 3rd but it doesn't put them all in. They can remake the army before you get across the map because they are already on 3 fully saturated bases. It really feels like you have to count on zerg making blunders or just having bad scouting.
It's not really a balance issue, you have a fair chance at winning with a 2 or 3 base all in as protoss. What I really don't like is that you can only expect your odds to get worse after that point. Playing into the late game against a zerg on hive tech, who's been ahead on econ the whole game isn't fun. At that point you're hoping on an archon toilet to win, and hoping the zerg is incompetent enough to stack all his units for a vortex.
I used to really enjoy those epic split map wars of positioning, tech switches, and late game harass. Rarely, if ever, get games like that anymore.
I used to have the same problem, then I ripped a fast 3rd build straight out of Puzzle's playbook to safely get into a macro game before starting to pump out speed prisms and high templar like a madman and playing a heavy harassment style.
Just saying that this match up doesn't have to be stale, as long as you're creative, pvz can still be fun as hell vs styles like this.
only now did I read morrows post about this Overall what he says is obvious (look aggressive so zerg builds too many attack units before droning up) but the whole explanation is still very useful thanks!
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
FFE into 5 gate zealot proxy pylon on the 3rd (OR 4 gate robo prism drop if you wanna be more save about the z not finding your pylon)... focus all zeals on killing the 3rd... congrats ur now ahead... now use ur mad amounts of vespane to make tons of sentrys AT YOUR BASE after the 1st wave of forward zeals and make a robo and twilight either 2 base colossus push or take fast 3rd for the econ haul.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
FFE into 5 gate zealot proxy pylon on the 3rd (OR 4 gate robo prism drop if you wanna be more save about the z not finding your pylon)... focus all zeals on killing the 3rd... congrats ur now ahead... now use ur mad amounts of vespane to make tons of sentrys AT YOUR BASE after the 1st wave of forward zeals and make a robo and twilight either 2 base colossus push or take fast 3rd for the econ haul.
i saw minigun using this and wrecking Z all day
zerg must be playing super super bad if he lets one wave of zealot kill his 3rd even if protoss keeps warping units the entire time at the front zerg should not lose the 3rd to a 4 or 5 gate.
On May 30 2012 12:02 Falcon-sw wrote: I've seen +2 blink stalkers at around 10 minutes destroy pro zergs using this strategy. Blink is just too cost effective if you have good micro.
Problem with this is you're just crossing your fingers and hoping you don't get fungled. If they land just 1 or 2 fungals, you loose the game. You will never be able to take a 3rd after you loose a ball of stalkers at that time. I was doing early zealot aggression to slow things down for the zerg, but because of the queen buff it's just not viable. The queen can just hide behind the mineral line and pick off zealots with a few drones blocking, while lings are made.
I am starting to really dislike pvz nowadays. So many people are using this style, all protoss can do against it is 2 base all in or turtle and 3 base all in. Either way you are playing from behind, and if the zerg scouts properly they can prepare and defend either play. They will have hive tech by the time your 3 base play hits anyway. It's also very hard to know if the zerg is about to all in you, well I shouldn't say "all in" I guess. With this style zerg can afford to throw away an entire army to deny the protoss 3rd but it doesn't put them all in. They can remake the army before you get across the map because they are already on 3 fully saturated bases. It really feels like you have to count on zerg making blunders or just having bad scouting.
It's not really a balance issue, you have a fair chance at winning with a 2 or 3 base all in as protoss. What I really don't like is that you can only expect your odds to get worse after that point. Playing into the late game against a zerg on hive tech, who's been ahead on econ the whole game isn't fun. At that point you're hoping on an archon toilet to win, and hoping the zerg is incompetent enough to stack all his units for a vortex.
I used to really enjoy those epic split map wars of positioning, tech switches, and late game harass. Rarely, if ever, get games like that anymore.
I used to have the same problem, then I ripped a fast 3rd build straight out of Puzzle's playbook to safely get into a macro game before starting to pump out speed prisms and high templar like a madman and playing a heavy harassment style.
Just saying that this match up doesn't have to be stale, as long as you're creative, pvz can still be fun as hell vs styles like this.
On March 30 2012 03:39 daredpanda wrote: What can toss do to prevent this?
FFE into 5 gate zealot proxy pylon on the 3rd (OR 4 gate robo prism drop if you wanna be more save about the z not finding your pylon)... focus all zeals on killing the 3rd... congrats ur now ahead... now use ur mad amounts of vespane to make tons of sentrys AT YOUR BASE after the 1st wave of forward zeals and make a robo and twilight either 2 base colossus push or take fast 3rd for the econ haul.
i saw minigun using this and wrecking Z all day
Most times you won't be able to focus the 3rd down, but sometimes forcing Zerg to produce earlier roaches (before they've reached 3base saturation) can be all the damage you need.
This post was very useful to me. I'm still learning the build, but I've noticed a few things that were counterintuitive for me as a low-level player in earlier sessions. These details help me remember the timings - maybe they'll help other people too!
• A drone is sent out for the third when the first queen finishes. • The first queen doesn't immediately transfer. Instead, she injects once, drops a creep tumor, and THEN transfers. In this way, drones are delayed so that the third goes down more quickly. • 2 gas begin when the main and natural are both fully saturated (16 drones each). • The third gas beings when lair begins to pay for lair tech. (You mentioned this). • The roach/evo 7:00 timing is there to account for stargate and 6gate pressure. The evolution chamber won't begin +1 until you begin making roaches. So it'll sit there for about 45 seconds, just chilling. My instinct was to start +1 immediately, but you don't have enough roaches that way. Unless you see a stargate, maybe? • The fourth geyser begins when roach production begins to pay for roaches.
On June 15 2012 05:51 9-BiT wrote: At a low level do you think this increases good play? would it be okay to use it in all 3 matchups?
At a low level anything goes. So I could owkr in all MUs. But it is a zvp build. And yes, any build will increase your level of play. When you already know what to do, you can spend more mental resources on executing, instead of thinking = faster play.
On June 15 2012 05:51 9-BiT wrote: At a low level do you think this increases good play? would it be okay to use it in all 3 matchups?
I don't think it would be best for lower-level players to do this in every matchup. In ZvZ for example, if you're taking that fast of a 3rd and going for 60 drones before roaches, you're just going to die too often. BUT you could always have the eventual goal of reaching full 3base saturation with 4 gas and a macro hatch, and using that as your mid-game plan for all matchups.
Yea definitely not for ZvZ. Just too risky. You can do the same thing in ZvT and ZvP up to diamond in most cases. The fast third in ZvT its a little sketchy even at low levels, but you could get away with a macro 3rd hatch and go heavy roach aggression.
On June 21 2012 14:01 89vision wrote: Yea definitely not for ZvZ. Just too risky. You can do the same thing in ZvT and ZvP up to diamond in most cases. The fast third in ZvT its a little sketchy even at low levels, but you could get away with a macro 3rd hatch and go heavy roach aggression.
One thing you can do for ZvT is just get the warren around 5:30/6:00 and just 4-6 roaches out so you can secure your third. From there you could move into the roach max-out.
On June 15 2012 05:51 9-BiT wrote: At a low level do you think this increases good play? would it be okay to use it in all 3 matchups?
I think the most important thing at lower levels is to "have a plan" But yes most things will help you improve as long as you start adjusting when things seem to not work anymore.
On June 15 2012 05:51 9-BiT wrote: At a low level do you think this increases good play? would it be okay to use it in all 3 matchups?
I think the most important thing at lower levels is to "have a plan" But yes most things will help you improve as long as you start adjusting when things seem to not work anymore.
I agree that the most important thing is having a plan. Day9 always talked about the importance of a "mid-game" plan and it's so true. What you really need to do is set an ideal for economy, an army/upgrade composition, and a strategy/plan. So with this style of roaches, the mid-game plan is 60 drones, roaches with speed and +1, used to deny the protoss third. This idea of defining an economy/army/strategy can and should be used in all matchups though.
Thanks Tang I've been looking for this guide again and I haven't been playing lately but hopefully with this I'll be able to refine my ZvP once again to where it was a few months ago. I still use your ZvZ hyper-aggressive guide and It's been proven to work time and time again. Thanks.
On July 11 2012 17:42 Jugulle wrote: Thanks Tang I've been looking for this guide again and I haven't been playing lately but hopefully with this I'll be able to refine my ZvP once again to where it was a few months ago.
I hope so too. The biggest thing to remember (aside from the timings/build) is to scout Protoss expansion gas at the 6:30-7:00 mark. If he's taken the gas, you should feel comfortable to drone up past the 60s of supply and go lair first. If he hasn't taken the gas, you should stop producing drones around 54 supply, get zergling speed and overlords, and produce units in preparation for either 4-gate zealot pressure or a 6-8 gate all-in.
Apparently the standard for maxing out on Roach-Ling is 11:30 now, not 12:00. What adjustments can I make to the build to try and hit that timing? Also, I've been using DRG's triple gas at 6:30 instead of double gas at 6:00: Do you reckon this is a good idea? Does it require me to change subsequent timings much if I do this?
On August 10 2012 19:37 Salivanth wrote: Apparently the standard for maxing out on Roach-Ling is 11:30 now, not 12:00. What adjustments can I make to the build to try and hit that timing? Also, I've been using DRG's triple gas at 6:30 instead of double gas at 6:00: Do you reckon this is a good idea? Does it require me to change subsequent timings much if I do this?
Yah you can actually do it around 11 minutes as well. You just need to reach full saturation at all 3 bases ASAP, with the macro hatch around 8 minutes. No supply blocks, no missed injects, no larva over 3.
I think the DRG gas timing works out to be the same. I know DRG likes to get a big round of lings pretty early (50s/60s) to deny pylons, but otherwise I think he keeps the timings the same.
Hi, i was just reading the recent posts and i was wondering if it would be a good idea to make two overlords at 58 instead of one. The reasoning behind this would be that you benchmark 78 supply of drones (with 2 lings and 2 queens) by the 8 minute mark instead of 70 supply of drones at the 8 minute mark if you only make one overlord at 58. You barely squeeze those drones out right at around 7:55 but isn't this a better benchmarks? The higher supply at 8 minutes the better right? Therefore, i proceeded with the build maxing out at 12 minutes with 70 drones instead of 60 just because of that extra overlord. Maybe this delays the maxout by like 5 seconds but isn't it worth it? Also, as you were saying about the new 11 minute maxout i was thinking about making the macro hatch right after the 78 supply...
But to be honest. Some people say that the roach maxout really isn't a good build these days. I just feel like many protoss can defend it easily at my level (mid-high diamond). I feel like they just throw down a 2nd robo and pump out more immortals. Therefore, i rarely do the roach MAX out, rather i just make a decent amount of roach ling to defend, (maybe poke his third a bit) i grab that quick fourth and spine up while teching to infestor brood lord. I use the beginning of your build as my standard ZvP macro build though and i thank you tons for that. But is making the second overlord at 58 sound like a good idea? Thanks.
On August 23 2012 12:24 uNiQuEDouG wrote: Hi, i was just reading the recent posts and i was wondering if it would be a good idea to make two overlords at 58 instead of one. The reasoning behind this would be that you benchmark 78 supply of drones (with 2 lings and 2 queens) by the 8 minute mark instead of 70 supply of drones at the 8 minute mark if you only make one overlord at 58. You barely squeeze those drones out right at around 7:55 but isn't this a better benchmarks? The higher supply at 8 minutes the better right? Therefore, i proceeded with the build maxing out at 12 minutes with 70 drones instead of 60 just because of that extra overlord. Maybe this delays the maxout by like 5 seconds but isn't it worth it? Also, as you were saying about the new 11 minute maxout i was thinking about making the macro hatch right after the 78 supply...
I'd have to test it, not sure how one overlord makes the difference of 10 extra drones though.
For the earliest maxout possible, you start the macro hatch and +1 around 8:00 (you should be at 60~ drones)
just curious but how do u transition OUT of this build for the lategame? for example lest assume the toss has perfect FFs and holds the roach ling aggression perfectly and there is not much of anything you can do to break him. how do u transition out of this build after being on roaches for so long? it seems like after that point the toss has a very clear cut advantage and a huge window to push with the traditional deathball.
even if i take all of my gasses and my 4th i dont have enough time to get broods/infestors out in time.
From what I've seen this style isn't the best at transitioning, though its not completely all in. Of late I've seen zergs shy away from this style while still using the same opening, which seems good for both placing on roach/ling pressure or adding on more gas, a fourth base and going straight for infestor tech safely. It seems to me that the best way of approaching it is to go for the roach max if you see an opening to do damage or just transitioning straight into infestors and double upgrades for melee if there is no such opening.
On August 23 2012 12:24 uNiQuEDouG wrote: Hi, i was just reading the recent posts and i was wondering if it would be a good idea to make two overlords at 58 instead of one. The reasoning behind this would be that you benchmark 78 supply of drones (with 2 lings and 2 queens) by the 8 minute mark instead of 70 supply of drones at the 8 minute mark if you only make one overlord at 58. You barely squeeze those drones out right at around 7:55 but isn't this a better benchmarks? The higher supply at 8 minutes the better right? Therefore, i proceeded with the build maxing out at 12 minutes with 70 drones instead of 60 just because of that extra overlord. Maybe this delays the maxout by like 5 seconds but isn't it worth it? Also, as you were saying about the new 11 minute maxout i was thinking about making the macro hatch right after the 78 supply...
But to be honest. Some people say that the roach maxout really isn't a good build these days. I just feel like many protoss can defend it easily at my level (mid-high diamond). I feel like they just throw down a 2nd robo and pump out more immortals. Therefore, i rarely do the roach MAX out, rather i just make a decent amount of roach ling to defend, (maybe poke his third a bit) i grab that quick fourth and spine up while teching to infestor brood lord. I use the beginning of your build as my standard ZvP macro build though and i thank you tons for that. But is making the second overlord at 58 sound like a good idea? Thanks.
It depends on the situation, I've seen many korean zergs hit 75 supply at 8:00 but it wont increase your mineral income by a lot in this buildorder and is probably better if you play a bit more standard. ' In addition, if you are gonna max out at 200/200 you'd much rather have less drones anyway. (so 64 is better than 72)
That's at least my observation.
On August 25 2012 19:16 Ballistixz wrote: just curious but how do u transition OUT of this build for the lategame? for example lest assume the toss has perfect FFs and holds the roach ling aggression perfectly and there is not much of anything you can do to break him. how do u transition out of this build after being on roaches for so long? it seems like after that point the toss has a very clear cut advantage and a huge window to push with the traditional deathball.
even if i take all of my gasses and my 4th i dont have enough time to get broods/infestors out in time.
If the protoss will push at the timing before your broodlords, you need to crush his push with good use of spines+infestors+corruptors(if u scout colo). I wouldn't try to save up too much for broodlords and invest all you've got into just stuff that would help you win the battle. If you win this big battle, you will be in charge of the game again and will be easily to reach broodlords.
The most important thing is realising the protoss is well defended as soon as you can, to prepare your transistion as soon as possible. If your infestation pit is too delayed, your hive is too delayed, and this will hurt you.
I think HoMM explains it quite well. If you commit to too many roaches, it's very difficult to get Broodlords out in time for the 3-base timing attack. You must be able to hold with spines/infestors/corruptors/roaches/zerglings. A good series to watch for this is Scarlett vs Ddoro in WCS (Sorry I don't have the links). Stephano is also quite skilled at engaging with infested terran/corruptor/roach.
Another option is to go more Zergling-focused in the middle stages, it won't delay your tech as much if you only make 10-20 roaches. If you don't think the Protoss is going for a timing, you can even skip roach speed. Then you can go more corruptor/infestor heavy OR skip infestors and try to get broodlords before the three-base timing. If refined and well executed, both approaches to the late game can work.
On September 04 2012 03:55 yevoc wrote: I just learned the hard way that not eventually getting a spire can really, really hurt if the game drags on.
Once there are enough void rays on the field, it becomes a stalemate where he can't attack the creep and the roaches can't deny expansions anymore.
Usually if you can keep Protoss contained to two bases long enough, you can continue trading roaches off of your three-base economy until you win. If he's still on two-bases by 11-12minutes, you should be pretty relentless with your roaches, knowing that you have the saturation behind it to continue reinforcing, and he won't be able to match production. Still, it's not a bad idea to squeeze out those extra 8-10 drones to take the additional 2 geysers and a spire (once you've successfully denied the third), mixing in corruptors with your roaches will keep his voidray/colossus below a critical number.
First of all, I must say that this is a very high quality guide, which compliments the other material concerning this style really well. As of late I have been have some issues with the protosses taking their early third seems to hold this kind of aggression better and better. But I still have great success with it against 2 base play . Do you have the same experience or I'm I off? The cool thing, I think is that you can do the opening then choose if you want to play the max out style or something else, and still utilizing the potential power of a 11:00-11:30 maxout vs an array of protoss all ins. What are your thoughts about the style in the present "metagame" ?
The first 8 minutes are incredibly standard no matter what you do in ZvP. The timings the pros use may change slightly, but you can definitely go 6:00 2x gas, 7:00 RW + Evo, 7:30 Lair and then go into whatever you like, such as muta-ling, ling-infestor, etc. The maxout style only really starts at the 8-minute mark when you pump OLs and Roaches: Before that, it's about 95% standard macro ZvP.
On October 20 2012 17:51 Salivanth wrote: The first 8 minutes are incredibly standard no matter what you do in ZvP. The timings the pros use may change slightly, but you can definitely go 6:00 2x gas, 7:00 RW + Evo, 7:30 Lair and then go into whatever you like, such as muta-ling, ling-infestor, etc. The maxout style only really starts at the 8-minute mark when you pump OLs and Roaches: Before that, it's about 95% standard macro ZvP.
The gas and lair timings in standard ZvP were defined by this opening though, not copied by it
On October 20 2012 02:20 TheOnlyRedViper wrote: The cool thing, I think is that you can do the opening then choose if you want to play the max out style or something else, and still utilizing the potential power of a 11:00-11:30 maxout vs an array of protoss all ins. What are your thoughts about the style in the present "metagame" ?
More players are steering towards mutalisks when Protoss takes a third, by taking a fourth and immediately moving up to 6 gas. It's rare to see top-tier players still maxing out on Roaches in response to a third nexus, the Roach-max is more used to hold off 2-base all-ins.
On October 20 2012 02:20 TheOnlyRedViper wrote: The cool thing, I think is that you can do the opening then choose if you want to play the max out style or something else, and still utilizing the potential power of a 11:00-11:30 maxout vs an array of protoss all ins. What are your thoughts about the style in the present "metagame" ?
More players are steering towards mutalisks when Protoss takes a third, by taking a fourth and immediately moving up to 6 gas. It's rare to see top-tier players still maxing out on Roaches in response to a third nexus, the Roach-max is more used to hold off 2-base all-ins.
O.o I always thought that the roach max was designed to deny a 3rd base and so was very good against failed 2 base all ins, Aren't most 2 base all ins designed to hit before the production cycle of your 4/5 hatch + injects really come into play?
On October 20 2012 02:20 TheOnlyRedViper wrote: The cool thing, I think is that you can do the opening then choose if you want to play the max out style or something else, and still utilizing the potential power of a 11:00-11:30 maxout vs an array of protoss all ins. What are your thoughts about the style in the present "metagame" ?
More players are steering towards mutalisks when Protoss takes a third, by taking a fourth and immediately moving up to 6 gas. It's rare to see top-tier players still maxing out on Roaches in response to a third nexus, the Roach-max is more used to hold off 2-base all-ins.
O.o I always thought that the roach max was designed to deny a 3rd base and so was very good against failed 2 base all ins, Aren't most 2 base all ins designed to hit before the production cycle of your 4/5 hatch + injects really come into play?
The prevalence of Immortal/Sentry openers in combination with closer thirds and Protoss players adapting to the heavy Roach max style with more careful forcefield use and walling off open sections of their third means that the chance of denying a third has decreased significantly.
It's basically been almost made obsolete by rapid Hive tech timings and mutalisk play. We may see a resurgence of aggressive mid-game unit compositions, however, as Korean Protoss players have started to figure out extremely strong Pre-Hive attack timings off of three bases (look at most of Rain's ZvPs on Daybreak from BWC to know exactly what I'm talking about).
I'm imagining a transition to heavily upgraded Roach/Ling/Infestor/Corrupter compositions until Zerg is on 5bases with 10 gas geysers operational as becoming the next step in the metagame.
i don´t think that this style isn´t possible in hots anymore at high lvl not only the msc is new voidrays so incredible strong against like everything what the zerg got and hydras with the buff are just much stronger than the roaches , i think mass lings are now better than ling roach style (i´m protoss and got more problems against mass lings than roach ling)
On May 16 2013 22:01 Banorac wrote: The opening is still somewhat valid, but the getting pure roach part has become somewhat obsolete, much like this thread.
Considering the last reply was from november 2012, that should have given you a hint.
Well the opening has changed a bit, but I don't think pure roach is obsolete - in fact, I think it's still one of the stronger approaches to mid-game ZvP - especially with the effective hydra transitions.
On May 16 2013 22:01 Banorac wrote: The opening is still somewhat valid, but the getting pure roach part has become somewhat obsolete, much like this thread.
Considering the last reply was from november 2012, that should have given you a hint.
Well the opening has changed a bit, but I don't think pure roach is obsolete - in fact, I think it's still one of the stronger approaches to mid-game ZvP - especially with the effective hydra transitions.
Additionally, on many ladder maps holding the third is a nightmare for the Protoss so yeah, while this build may be outdated, lair tech bust remain extremely effective.
On May 16 2013 22:01 Banorac wrote: The opening is still somewhat valid, but the getting pure roach part has become somewhat obsolete, much like this thread.
Considering the last reply was from november 2012, that should have given you a hint.
Well the opening has changed a bit, but I don't think pure roach is obsolete - in fact, I think it's still one of the stronger approaches to mid-game ZvP - especially with the effective hydra transitions.
Additionally, on many ladder maps holding the third is a nightmare for the Protoss so yeah, while this build may be outdated, lair tech bust remain extremely effective.
Yeah that's really true some of the the new maps, even on Akilon wastes (which seems like an easier third behind the rocks) the natural ramp is HUGE and tough for Toss to defend.
With the meta game shifting to 2 base colossus timings I think it's very viable. Put double evo's down in front of your base so he sees them. That might be enough to get him to go 2 base colossus. You don't even have to use them. Immortal sentry timings have fallen out of style.
Yeah Immo/Sentry is less common but can still be held with Stephano-style in most cases. I like your double-evo meta-game, just make sure you're doing it against opponents sophisticated enough to make that kind of read lol don't wanna fall victim to "fancy play syndrome"