The HotS Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 187
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Karpfen
Italy959 Posts
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Frankie Teardrop
United States74 Posts
Here are 4 replays of him doing the same build, and me not being able to defend it using various zerg openings, even though I knew he was going to do the build before the games started. http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251268 http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251267 http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251266 http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251265 Can anyone give me some advice as to how to defend against this. Normally on ladder, if I scout a nexus first, I do some sort of gasless opening (either pool > hatch > hatch, or 3 hatch before pool) and don't take any gas until 6:00. The games here where I came closest to defending were when I went for a ling speed opening, even though I wouldn't normally open that way vs a random protoss on ladder, so I feel like that was just a meta advantage on my part, yet I still lost. When I did gasless openings, he hit when all I had was slow lings and it was NOT pretty. | ||
Alchemik
Poland7124 Posts
I've also watched the game where you went for a speed opener - your 3rd was late and you didn't have enough drones at the beggining, you only made some later. Probably people who'd watch closer, and are better, can say more though. Probably to hold that 8-gate all-in you'd need spines, queens and lings or maybe roaches. | ||
mooseman1710
United States153 Posts
On July 22 2014 23:27 Frankie Teardrop wrote: So I played a few ZvP recently against a friend of mine. He (protoss) was trying out a new all in build that he said he saw Scarlett do. It consisted of a nexus first into an 8-gate all in, all off 1 gas. He did the same build several games in a row, and every time I lost horribly. I tried 3 hatch before pool (after drone scouting nexus first) and I also tried standard ling speed openers too. No matter what I did, and even when I managed to fight off the first few warp ins, he eventually overwhelmed me every game. Here are 4 replays of him doing the same build, and me not being able to defend it using various zerg openings, even though I knew he was going to do the build before the games started. http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251268 http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251267 http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251266 http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251265 Can anyone give me some advice as to how to defend against this. Normally on ladder, if I scout a nexus first, I do some sort of gasless opening (either pool > hatch > hatch, or 3 hatch before pool) and don't take any gas until 6:00. The games here where I came closest to defending were when I went for a ling speed opening, even though I wouldn't normally open that way vs a random protoss on ladder, so I feel like that was just a meta advantage on my part, yet I still lost. When I did gasless openings, he hit when all I had was slow lings and it was NOT pretty. my advice would be to sac ur third and not even drone it up at all. make some spines at ur natural and mass speed roach off 2 gasses and when u can get ur third gas up do so. you have to realize that with an 8 gate all in u will always have a tech advantage if you just mass speed roach, so there will be a point where you will have a critical ball of speedroach if u are efficient. maintain 2 base saturation and try to get up to 3 gas with some extra queens and spines and you will be able to run him over. if you scout it fast enough maybe u can get macro hatch instead of third base. get speed before lair and buy time as much as possible with pylon snipes and probe snipes. only one gas after nexus is a key thing to scout | ||
mooseman1710
United States153 Posts
id rather use my vetos than let them sit there. | ||
Frankie Teardrop
United States74 Posts
On July 23 2014 03:09 Alchemik wrote: I've watched the last game (the failed-cannon rush one) and I think the biggest problem there were injects. You had around 1k minerals in the bank, but no larvae to spend them on. Engagments didn't seem perfect as well, but I shouldn't be talking about that, since I'm not so sure what's the best way to hold 2-base colossus anyway. I've also watched the game where you went for a speed opener - your 3rd was late and you didn't have enough drones at the beggining, you only made some later. Probably people who'd watch closer, and are better, can say more though. Probably to hold that 8-gate all-in you'd need spines, queens and lings or maybe roaches. Oops. I didn't mean to include the cannon rush one. I meant to include another 8 gate replay. As for the speed opener, I thought 5:00-5:30 was standard time for a 3rd base when you open pool > hatch > gas? Aside from 2 sets of lings, I made nothing but drones until at least 6:30, and only cut them to take a 3rd at about 30 supply. How could I have squeezed more drones in? | ||
Alchemik
Poland7124 Posts
On July 23 2014 04:07 Frankie Teardrop wrote: As for the speed opener, I thought 5:00-5:30 was standard time for a 3rd base when you open pool > hatch > gas? Actually, you're probably right, yeah. Sorry, I guess I had a brainfart. As for the drones - I'm not sure, but I think you might have overmade lings. After you repelled the first pressure, you had 27 lings left and 25 drones compared to 31 probes. And later you had no spines, which I think would help immensly. Maybe making few more queens when you realize it's coming? Ahh, better players than me should help. | ||
EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On July 22 2014 23:27 Frankie Teardrop wrote: So I played a few ZvP recently against a friend of mine. He (protoss) was trying out a new all in build that he said he saw Scarlett do. It consisted of a nexus first into an 8-gate all in, all off 1 gas. He did the same build several games in a row, and every time I lost horribly. I tried 3 hatch before pool (after drone scouting nexus first) and I also tried standard ling speed openers too. No matter what I did, and even when I managed to fight off the first few warp ins, he eventually overwhelmed me every game. Here are 4 replays of him doing the same build, and me not being able to defend it using various zerg openings, even though I knew he was going to do the build before the games started. http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251268 http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251267 http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251266 http://ggtracker.com/matches/5251265 Can anyone give me some advice as to how to defend against this. Normally on ladder, if I scout a nexus first, I do some sort of gasless opening (either pool > hatch > hatch, or 3 hatch before pool) and don't take any gas until 6:00. The games here where I came closest to defending were when I went for a ling speed opening, even though I wouldn't normally open that way vs a random protoss on ladder, so I feel like that was just a meta advantage on my part, yet I still lost. When I did gasless openings, he hit when all I had was slow lings and it was NOT pretty. Game 1: + Show Spoiler + - Forgot 4th queen. When you go triple hatch before pool, you wanna send the queen at your natural directly to the 3rd and build a 4th queen. This way you have an injecting queen per hatchery plus a creep spread queen. Also, there are varying responses as far as creep tumor vs injects are concerned with the first 50 energy on all three queens, but I think the strongest combination is one inject and two creep tumors; you simply can't spend all of your larva with three injects. - In retrospect, this lack of creep spread is really what killed you. - @6:00-6:30, still no natural gases. About this time, you should be going, "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, what's going on here?", and a followup scout into the main with the overlord confirms only one gas and a shitton of gateways. If that's not enough, the units pushing out on the map should give you a 100% confirmed indicator that he's probably looking to be aggressive. - @6:30, you cripple yourself hard by massing a bunch of lings, (losing an overlord), and going zergling speed first. In a situation like this, it's much better to just build an emergency roach warren plus spines FIRST, then work on your zergling production. DO NOT USE YOUR GAS ON LING SPEED. - @8:00, if you go emergency roach warren plus spines and pull all queens, you have 13 roaches plus a fair number of zerglings to hold. - Make sure you have ~40 drones. In this game, you cut at 35, which is definitely not enough drones. -On top of this, your generally atrocious micro of running the lings through the Protoss army without attacking then running away was also detrimental to your winning the game. If you're going to commit with the lings, commit. If not, just lose the hatchery instead of a bunch of lings and hatchery. Game 2: + Show Spoiler + - You overbuilt an overlord and had bad saturation in your main. As a result, you had to cut drones in order to put down your 3rd base at a normal time. If you do it in the proper order, you should be able to get it down around 5:30 on 32 supply, then make an overlord, then spend the rest of your larva without any problems. Also, make sure you're keeping 16 on each hatchery, especially at these early stages, where the extra 40-50 minerals that you pick up is a big deal. - @6:30, you overdefend and stop droning for the rest of the game. After you destroy the initial pylons, you're actually completely safe for a solid minute or two. - @7:00-8:30, your lings are sitting around doing generally nothing. The lings need to be threatening a counterattack and/or following behind the army to pick off pylons and reinforcements. It also helps later with executing a surround. At the very least, you can pull them back and go to work on the rocks. - You have 37 drones when the pressure hits at 9:00. If you actually followed the double upgraded ling build that I posted, you would actually have +1/+1 lings and ~20 roaches building by 9:30-10:00 with 60 drones. Do you understand how far behind you are by the time you get here? - The game was lost at 6:30 when you decided to cripple your economy and overdefend. - Again, your micro was nothing short of spectacularly bad. No offense, I'm literally just telling you the truth. Game 3: + Show Spoiler + - Opening looks a little bit better this game. Your saturation is still off, though, and your 3rd can be a little bit better timed. Again, make it on 32 with a gas opening (28 on gasless). - @6:30 Oh god, you did it again. - Scout timing was better this game. - Again, your rather uninspiring micro makes an appearance. It's actually not too hard to micro lings. Step 1: make sure you have enough to kill what you're attacking. Step 2: surround. Step 3: attack move and look away. Your units literally spend 90% of their time running around the Protoss units and not attacking, which is incredibly confusing. - What follows is essentially you trying to micro with very few units and no income. You cut drones at 32, less than any other game, and you nearly hold. Just imagine if you have 40-45 drones instead. - You will notice that I didn't even look at your injects. It's clear by the end of the game that you missed a few injects along the way (high energy queens). Obviously, this is a problem among others; just make sure you're not missing ANY injects and you'll become literally top master in a week. It's actually that simple. Your creep spread looks like it also suffers a bit. In general, just work on your basic mechanics and the rest of your game will get exponentially better. - One other note: You obviously know this, but going for this fast speed build with a ling swell at 6:00 is absolutely horrible versus a lot of FFE builds. Obviously, this is not the ideal way to open and, as a result, yields like 4% (completely arbitrary and made up number) blind win rate versus this build only. I hope I wasn't too rough on you, but there's a lot of holes in this play and most of it revolves around your mechanics. Fix your drone saturation, your injects, your creep spread, tighten your build orders, and work on your micro and a lot of these mystical "how do I hold this?" problems will solve themselves, at least at a diamond level. EDIT: I really apologize if I was a little harsh in this commentary. In retrospect, some of the things I said may have been taken badly, especially the comments on micro. I just want you to know that I'm trying to be constructive here and help you out, and sometimes I may say things jokingly or with a biting humor, so I apologize if I've said anything that might be demotivational. I think you have a lot of the right ideas (I saw a ton of things get fixed, just from game 2 to game 3), but you really need to work on your execution and just practice laddering A LOT to get your mechanics where they need to be. EDIT: Also, I think I forgot to mention the right way to hold this. Simply cut drones at 40 (make sure you have both main and natural saturation with 2 gas geysers), make a roach warren and two spines, then make a bunch of slow lings and pull all of your queens to the attack. Creep spread is critical during this time period as you won't have speed on any units for a little while. Remake the queens and start ling speed after the first swell of roaches. Make sure you're hitting all of your injects. DRG tried to hold it with mass lings and queens because he opened gasless, but I honestly think that's the worst possible reaction, especially when you scout out the build perfectly. Roaches as an emergency defense should be able to stop the initial aggression pretty strongly, and once ling speed finishes, you can begin to chase the Protoss army and surround it and shut it down for good. Again, creep spread is your best friend here. | ||
6xFPCs
United States412 Posts
On July 23 2014 03:22 mooseman1710 wrote: what has everyone been vetoing? id rather use my vetos than let them sit there. I veto based on where I'm not having fun. But that's also tied to specific reasons so anyway... I'm currently vetoing Merry Go Round and King Sejong Station. Both of these are mainly due to drop play in ZvT. On MGR, drops obviously go into the main easily, due to lots of dead space and a very open avenue from the non-natural side, but also mess with your fourth or fifth base if you take one of the raised platform bases in the center. The latter type of drop really messes with army efficiency, and in addition will have you chasing medivacs all over the map, instead of denying his fourth. For me, it feels like the war of attrition strongly favors terran here. Smart terrans will add a tank or two atop those central platforms, too, making the headache that much worse. On King Sejong, the fourth and the main are so far away, and the main has so, so much empty space for drops that it's really tough to deny drop play. That low ground just alongside the main doesn't help matters, and the fact that the whole path to get there is all droppable ground means it's tough to keep vision of that area, and that area is quite large. And the fourth has the high ground behind it that makes it tough to defend with static defense only. Potential vetoes you might want to consider: - Nimbus seems to frustrate some players, it plays funny, but I find that I have an easier time than most. It does become problematic in ZvT and sometimes in ZvP when they get to three base and you're trying to hold a fourth against a big army, say 2-2 MMM or stalker colossus, but that's mostly because it's a new kind of multitask and awareness to deal with. I solve it by backstabbing if I can't fight head on, or going to vipers/infestors behind some extra spines. Hyun seems to solve it by being smart about splitting his army and using mutas to counter. Oh and it can be tough to deny a pylon when trying to hold your third against a 4gate off gateway expand, that raised area is narrow and hard to access with lings, especially slow lings. And the ramp leading down to the third just begs for forcefield or timewarp abuse, one good spell can break your defense. You will sit there tapping at the rocks, and it will feel terrible. - Deadwing seems to be an unfortunate "everyone gets 4 bases" map, which can be terrible for zerg, especially on close spawns. ZvT kind of requires you to take down the horizontal passage rocks so he can't drop tanks behind them. ZvP I've had a game or two where they turtle until airtoss, and use the initial batch of VR to help establish cannons at the third, then fourth. It can be tough to outexpand a toss on this map just because you need like 7 bases' worth of gas to fight his 4 bases' worth. Basically Deadwing feels like a map where zerg macro caps out, and toss and terran get to safely grab as many bases as they'll ever want to have. The one benefit is that it is really easy to get to 4 bases for you, too, and the close distance makes injecting super efficient on top of that. I've snuck some early fourth bases and turned it into way more roaches than anyone ever wants to see. So basically you almost never need to bother with a macro hatch, just make it another expansion, even the fifth and sixth bases will be fairly close if you expand along the left or right side. - Foxtrot is narrow and smallish, so I think ZvP can easily become Not Fun. Think Cloud Kingdom but smaller by a bit, and the exit from the natural allowing for a toss or terran army to cover the third. I kind of like it, but then again I am a huge fan of Cloud Kingdom despite the immortal sentry stuff. The biggest advantage a zerg has, on foxtrot as opposed to on CK, is that the paths are less roundabout, so if he soultrains down one path, you can almost instantly counter down the other. Also, that pocket third that I mentioned is not accessible until he breaks down the rocks on the ramp, which can give you time to set up a contain at the bottom and delay his expo until he gets enough stuff to walk through a choke and engage you. In my personal opinion, infestors and vipers are pure gold on foxtrot. You can pretty much plug a lane with two fungals on the front section of his army, and the narrow lanes have adjacent high ground, so vipers can pull in relative safety, and sometimes with very little warning. And those ramps are hell for them if they are living in fear of fungal or blinding cloud. Oh and mutas are pretty much impossible to chase down. Barring the center of the main bases, you're never more than two seconds' run from a cliff or wall of some kind. - I don't know if there're good reasons to veto catellena, I just lose a lot on catellena and I'll vent my frustrations about it. I feel like it's hard to hold your third and fourth, the open ground is deceiving because of the nearby cliff (blink. tanks. medivacs.), pretty much every important fight is near a ramp if toss is defending, and the map is small enough that MMM will stim once and be at your door. Basically, the map is small but easy to defend for terran and toss. So they can hold your attacks just fine, but you can't hold theirs with normal reactive zerg play. So yeah I just aim for a sharp 1-1 roach timing in ZvT on this map, and in ZvP I go very heavy on roach-hydra, because otherwise I seem to die to stuff. | ||
Frankie Teardrop
United States74 Posts
On July 23 2014 12:46 SC2John wrote: Game 1: + Show Spoiler + - Forgot 4th queen. When you go triple hatch before pool, you wanna send the queen at your natural directly to the 3rd and build a 4th queen. This way you have an injecting queen per hatchery plus a creep spread queen. Also, there are varying responses as far as creep tumor vs injects are concerned with the first 50 energy on all three queens, but I think the strongest combination is one inject and two creep tumors; you simply can't spend all of your larva with three injects. - In retrospect, this lack of creep spread is really what killed you. - @6:00-6:30, still no natural gases. About this time, you should be going, "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, what's going on here?", and a followup scout into the main with the overlord confirms only one gas and a shitton of gateways. If that's not enough, the units pushing out on the map should give you a 100% confirmed indicator that he's probably looking to be aggressive. - @6:30, you cripple yourself hard by massing a bunch of lings, (losing an overlord), and going zergling speed first. In a situation like this, it's much better to just build an emergency roach warren plus spines FIRST, then work on your zergling production. DO NOT USE YOUR GAS ON LING SPEED. - @8:00, if you go emergency roach warren plus spines and pull all queens, you have 13 roaches plus a fair number of zerglings to hold. - Make sure you have ~40 drones. In this game, you cut at 35, which is definitely not enough drones. -On top of this, your generally atrocious micro of running the lings through the Protoss army without attacking then running away was also detrimental to your winning the game. If you're going to commit with the lings, commit. If not, just lose the hatchery instead of a bunch of lings and hatchery. Game 2: + Show Spoiler + - You overbuilt an overlord and had bad saturation in your main. As a result, you had to cut drones in order to put down your 3rd base at a normal time. If you do it in the proper order, you should be able to get it down around 5:30 on 32 supply, then make an overlord, then spend the rest of your larva without any problems. Also, make sure you're keeping 16 on each hatchery, especially at these early stages, where the extra 40-50 minerals that you pick up is a big deal. - @6:30, you overdefend and stop droning for the rest of the game. After you destroy the initial pylons, you're actually completely safe for a solid minute or two. - @7:00-8:30, your lings are sitting around doing generally nothing. The lings need to be threatening a counterattack and/or following behind the army to pick off pylons and reinforcements. It also helps later with executing a surround. At the very least, you can pull them back and go to work on the rocks. - You have 37 drones when the pressure hits at 9:00. If you actually followed the double upgraded ling build that I posted, you would actually have +1/+1 lings and ~20 roaches building by 9:30-10:00 with 60 drones. Do you understand how far behind you are by the time you get here? - The game was lost at 6:30 when you decided to cripple your economy and overdefend. - Again, your micro was nothing short of spectacularly bad. No offense, I'm literally just telling you the truth. Game 3: + Show Spoiler + - Opening looks a little bit better this game. Your saturation is still off, though, and your 3rd can be a little bit better timed. Again, make it on 32 with a gas opening (28 on gasless). - @6:30 Oh god, you did it again. - Scout timing was better this game. - Again, your rather uninspiring micro makes an appearance. It's actually not too hard to micro lings. Step 1: make sure you have enough to kill what you're attacking. Step 2: surround. Step 3: attack move and look away. Your units literally spend 90% of their time running around the Protoss units and not attacking, which is incredibly confusing. - What follows is essentially you trying to micro with very few units and no income. You cut drones at 32, less than any other game, and you nearly hold. Just imagine if you have 40-45 drones instead. - You will notice that I didn't even look at your injects. It's clear by the end of the game that you missed a few injects along the way (high energy queens). Obviously, this is a problem among others; just make sure you're not missing ANY injects and you'll become literally top master in a week. It's actually that simple. Your creep spread looks like it also suffers a bit. In general, just work on your basic mechanics and the rest of your game will get exponentially better. - One other note: You obviously know this, but going for this fast speed build with a ling swell at 6:00 is absolutely horrible versus a lot of FFE builds. Obviously, this is not the ideal way to open and, as a result, yields like 4% (completely arbitrary and made up number) blind win rate versus this build only. I hope I wasn't too rough on you, but there's a lot of holes in this play and most of it revolves around your mechanics. Fix your drone saturation, your injects, your creep spread, tighten your build orders, and work on your micro and a lot of these mystical "how do I hold this?" problems will solve themselves, at least at a diamond level. EDIT: I really apologize if I was a little harsh in this commentary. In retrospect, some of the things I said may have been taken badly, especially the comments on micro. I just want you to know that I'm trying to be constructive here and help you out, and sometimes I may say things jokingly or with a biting humor, so I apologize if I've said anything that might be demotivational. I think you have a lot of the right ideas (I saw a ton of things get fixed, just from game 2 to game 3), but you really need to work on your execution and just practice laddering A LOT to get your mechanics where they need to be. EDIT: Also, I think I forgot to mention the right way to hold this. Simply cut drones at 40 (make sure you have both main and natural saturation with 2 gas geysers), make a roach warren and two spines, then make a bunch of slow lings and pull all of your queens to the attack. Creep spread is critical during this time period as you won't have speed on any units for a little while. Remake the queens and start ling speed after the first swell of roaches. Make sure you're hitting all of your injects. DRG tried to hold it with mass lings and queens because he opened gasless, but I honestly think that's the worst possible reaction, especially when you scout out the build perfectly. Roaches as an emergency defense should be able to stop the initial aggression pretty strongly, and once ling speed finishes, you can begin to chase the Protoss army and surround it and shut it down for good. Again, creep spread is your best friend here. Please don't apologize, good sir. I would much rather you respond with harsh criticism than not at all. It looks like I need to be getting at least 2 base mineral saturation and 2 gas before making units, which is helpful to know. What often happens to me against Protoss is, once he starts to move out very early (usually with a zealot and MsC, but sometimes with a stalker to pick off an overlord or 2 along the way) and begins killing my lings at his front and at the watchtowers, I start to panic as I lose map control, and everything goes straight to hell from there. I neglect to sacrifice overlords at the right time, I cut drones way too early and start making way too many lings, I miss injects, I neglect to spread creep, and make all sorts of other bad decisions. This is especially true when the Protoss goes for an economic opener like nexus first or FFE, since I tend to feel like he is not going to move out until at least 7-8 minutes. When he starts to move out at 6:00, I am always thrown off my routine, and that's where the bad decisions start. I think if I learn to keep my cool even when I know an attack is imminent, I will make much better decisions. Some good bits of information I learned from your post that I would not have figured out on my own were: 1) the quick 4th queen when going for a 3 hatch before pool build. When my first 3 queens pop (which should all be around the same time) you recommend 1 inject and 2 creep rumors? (You mentioned something about the first 50 energy, which was a bit confusing. Did you mean the first 25?). Either way, I will certainly start making that 4th queen ASAP. 2) not making ling speed with first 100 gas. As a Zerg, it goes completely against my instincts to spend my first 100 gas on anything other than ling speed or lair. I definitely need to work on recognizing situations where I need to spend my first gas on roaches instead. 3) making 2 spines. (Should these be at the 3rd, or should I do what moose suggested and sac the third while building the spines at my natural?) Some things I already knew, but still need to work on continually: 1) my creep spread is bad (this is true across all matchups, but I get especially lazy with creep spread in ZvP) 2) my injects are bad 3) opening with gas and fast ling speed is not optimal against nexus first builds. The only reason I tried it here is because I failed to hold he push 2-3 times using gasless fast 3-hatch builds, and I knew that my partner was going to do the exact same build. | ||
EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On July 23 2014 23:12 Frankie Teardrop wrote: Please don't apologize, good sir. I would much rather you respond with harsh criticism than not at all. It looks like I need to be getting at least 2 base mineral saturation and 2 gas before making units, which is helpful to know. What often happens to me against Protoss is, once he starts to move out very early (usually with a zealot and MsC, but sometimes with a stalker to pick off an overlord or 2 along the way) and begins killing my lings at his front and at the watchtowers, I start to panic as I lose map control, and everything goes straight to hell from there. I neglect to sacrifice overlords at the right time, I cut drones way too early and start making way too many lings, I miss injects, I neglect to spread creep, and make all sorts of other bad decisions. This is especially true when the Protoss goes for an economic opener like nexus first or FFE, since I tend to feel like he is not going to move out until at least 7-8 minutes. When he starts to move out at 6:00, I am always thrown off my routine, and that's where the bad decisions start. I think if I learn to keep my cool even when I know an attack is imminent, I will make much better decisions. Some good bits of information I learned from your post that I would not have figured out on my own were: 1) the quick 4th queen when going for a 3 hatch before pool build. When my first 3 queens pop (which should all be around the same time) you recommend 1 inject and 2 creep rumors? (You mentioned something about the first 50 energy, which was a bit confusing. Did you mean the first 25?). Either way, I will certainly start making that 4th queen ASAP. 2) not making ling speed with first 100 gas. As a Zerg, it goes completely against my instincts to spend my first 100 gas on anything other than ling speed or lair. I definitely need to work on recognizing situations where I need to spend my first gas on roaches instead. 3) making 2 spines. (Should these be at the 3rd, or should I do what moose suggested and sac the third while building the spines at my natural?) Some things I already knew, but still need to work on continually: 1) my creep spread is bad (this is true across all matchups, but I get especially lazy with creep spread in ZvP) 2) my injects are bad 3) opening with gas and fast ling speed is not optimal against nexus first builds. The only reason I tried it here is because I failed to hold he push 2-3 times using gasless fast 3-hatch builds, and I knew that my partner was going to do the exact same build. 1) Yeah, I meant 25. I honestly don't know my numbers very well in SC2 (in terms of damage, injects, HP, things like that), but basically what I'm saying is that you have 3 queens pop out at about same time, so you have some range of decision making as to what combination of creep tumor/injects you'd like to do. I recommend 2 tumors and 1 inject because it works out best economically (especially if you're getting the 3rd queen out too), and it allows you to start your creep spread really early. Where exactly you want to place the tumors (main, natural, 3rd) is entirely stylistic and map dependent, I think. 2) Yeah, there are times when it's just better to pool gas and make emergency roaches instead. Another good example of this is the MAN train (immortal/zealot all-in), where, if you opened gasless, you can't afford to go speed first or you'll just lose. Basically, just think of it in terms of "the attack hits at X time, so if I get speed now, will it help me with the push at X time?" 3) The two spines should be where the attack is focused, which is typically the 3rd base. I honestly don't think you should have to sac the 3rd base to defend this unless you're just caught unprepared and there's no hope of you getting any amount of units out to deal with it, in which case, it's totally fine to use the 3rd hatch as a gigantic PDD to buy you time. Oh, and just a general note on engagements as a whole: Zerg is really a swarm race, so you need to make sure you just have a lot of stuff, surround your opponent, and attack. Don't do the thing where you try to focus down certain stalkers or fight, then decide you can't win and run away, etc., etc. It would be better if you lost all of your lings on amove than all of them by killing off all the Protoss shields then running away before dealing any real damage. | ||
Lucoda
Ireland183 Posts
Cheers in advance <3 High Masters Z btw | ||
Alchemik
Poland7124 Posts
Anyways, I think gasless is the most "solid" of builds, since it's basically safe from ling all-ins that are so popular. Gasless definitely is reliable, while with ling/bling you might just make one mistake with your micro and kind of lose the game. However I don't like to play roach vs roach, so normally I go for mutas in ZvZ into broodlords (need to figure out the best way and time to transition though, had some problems with that, almost got killed few times. Maybe someone tried that before and has some advices?). | ||
EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On July 24 2014 06:18 Alchemik wrote: Gasless definitely is viable - if someone opening with gas goes for a really fast 3rd, you can just kill him most of the time with a roach ling all-in off of gasless. Anyways, I think gasless is the most "solid" of builds, since it's basically safe from ling all-ins that are so popular. Gasless definitely is reliable, while with ling/bling you might just make one mistake with your micro and kind of lose the game. However I don't like to play roach vs roach, so normally I go for mutas in ZvZ into broodlords (need to figure out the best way and time to transition though, had some problems with that, almost got killed few times. Maybe someone tried that before and has some advices?). Gasless isn't exactly the best way to open if you're going mutas...it's a lot better for roaches. As for mutas into BLords, I think the best transition is through SHs honestly. It's just really hard to get the amount of static defense and gas needed to safely transition into BLords without slowing the game down immensely first. In general, I highly suggest looking at Lowko's Gasless ZvZ Opening, as it's pretty informative and lays out a really basic and easy build. Gas openings generally get the second gas around 5:30 unless some kind of ling/bling aggression and defending going on and transition on into roaches. If you want to go mutalisks, you can delay this second gas for a little bit longer and just add all your gases after you start lair (usually ~7:00-8:00). | ||
6xFPCs
United States412 Posts
On July 24 2014 05:07 LucoxP wrote: Could someone give me a brief overview of standard ZvZ at the moment and maybe a solid style to follow? Been having incredible trouble in the MU for the past few months (30% WR roughly) so I really need to change stuff up. I don't mind playing muta or roach or any style. I wouldn't mind playing gasless, but I think that gasless is not very viable these days as gas players can cut loads of corners to get a big advantage. Cheers in advance <3 High Masters Z btw I'd want to see a replay, actually. I'm in diamond atm but former masters. My guess is that you're pretty on the ball except for a small issue that's tipping things in favor of your opponents, so optimizing build orders, checking natural drone count, watching the exit of his base for units, etc. are all not a problem. So... toss me a replay, if you don't mind. Anyway, my take is that ZvZ revolves around roaches (at least in GSL/proleague level play), and reading your opponent. Mutas are basically a temporary harass that transitions into roaches after using map dominance to get up a strong econ. Early on, lings/banes are just a defensive measure until +1 attack roaches come out. Make sure you pay very close attention to your roach fights. Not just easy, obvious stuff like unit count and concave and upgrades, but things like how many of your roaches are firing and how many are idle, how many shots are wasted on overkill, how many shots are wasted/delayed by movement, and where reinforcements are arriving. Keeping track of his army outside of fights is also important because it enables you to get good counterattacks. If he is off to the side, box 5-6 roaches and run into his main, check his tech and snipe a queen or two. Unlike with lings, roach backstabs are very tough to deal with, especially if you have burrow. Then after he chases your small distraction, you can try to snipe parts of his army, or out-concave him, or snipe an expo, all depending on how he splits up his units. I can talk at length about roach play but I'd rather not bore you with it unless it's relevant to what you're asking. On July 24 2014 06:18 Alchemik wrote: Gasless definitely is viable - if someone opening with gas goes for a really fast 3rd, you can just kill him most of the time with a roach ling all-in off of gasless. Anyways, I think gasless is the most "solid" of builds, since it's basically safe from ling all-ins that are so popular. Gasless definitely is reliable, while with ling/bling you might just make one mistake with your micro and kind of lose the game. However I don't like to play roach vs roach, so normally I go for mutas in ZvZ into broodlords (need to figure out the best way and time to transition though, had some problems with that, almost got killed few times. Maybe someone tried that before and has some advices?). Honestly, I think gasless is just handing over map control and you'll need to watch for your opponent potentially faking you out, either threatening a ling-bane all-in or heavy drones. You can't punish him until roaches (short of some slow ling all-in craziness, which dies horribly to banes if they see if coming). I guess it's viable enough, it does see play at high levels, but there's a reason ZvZ builds grab gas at 17 supply or earlier, gas is super important. It's a nice mixup, especially if they assume you're getting gas as usual, but I wouldn't recommend it as a standard, go-to build in ZvZ. Better to learn how to ling-bane consistently. | ||
Kommatiazo
United States579 Posts
On July 24 2014 02:35 SC2John wrote: 1) Yeah, I meant 25. I honestly don't know my numbers very well in SC2 (in terms of damage, injects, HP, things like that), but basically what I'm saying is that you have 3 queens pop out at about same time, so you have some range of decision making as to what combination of creep tumor/injects you'd like to do. I recommend 2 tumors and 1 inject because it works out best economically (especially if you're getting the 3rd queen out too), and it allows you to start your creep spread really early. Where exactly you want to place the tumors (main, natural, 3rd) is entirely stylistic and map dependent, I think. 2) Yeah, there are times when it's just better to pool gas and make emergency roaches instead. Another good example of this is the MAN train (immortal/zealot all-in), where, if you opened gasless, you can't afford to go speed first or you'll just lose. Basically, just think of it in terms of "the attack hits at X time, so if I get speed now, will it help me with the push at X time?" 3) The two spines should be where the attack is focused, which is typically the 3rd base. I honestly don't think you should have to sac the 3rd base to defend this unless you're just caught unprepared and there's no hope of you getting any amount of units out to deal with it, in which case, it's totally fine to use the 3rd hatch as a gigantic PDD to buy you time. Oh, and just a general note on engagements as a whole: Zerg is really a swarm race, so you need to make sure you just have a lot of stuff, surround your opponent, and attack. Don't do the thing where you try to focus down certain stalkers or fight, then decide you can't win and run away, etc., etc. It would be better if you lost all of your lings on amove than all of them by killing off all the Protoss shields then running away before dealing any real damage. This was all highly useful to me SC2John, thank you. I almost felt like I was the one posting these replays lol. I might require your harsh but spectacularly awesome words soon on some of my games. Working towards diamond and ZvP is getting tough again :/ Thanks for your help!! | ||
Alchemik
Poland7124 Posts
On July 24 2014 10:34 SC2John wrote: Gasless isn't exactly the best way to open if you're going mutas...it's a lot better for roaches. As for mutas into BLords, I think the best transition is through SHs honestly. It's just really hard to get the amount of static defense and gas needed to safely transition into BLords without slowing the game down immensely first. Yeah, sure, I know about the first one - I open with ling/bane. I guess I made it look like I open gasless, sorry, my fault. And about broodlords... meh, I don't really like using SH in ZvZ. (I don't like them in any match-up, but especially in ZvZ ). I guess I gotta try to make it as safe as possible, even if it can't be "safe" in the end. Maybe being aggresive with ling bane muta, taxing the multitasking of my opponent and keeping him busy while teching to broodlords might be the way? Or maybe somehow trying to turtle and only threating with mutas? Well, gotta try everything! (In diamond everything will work anyway, even if it's not that viable at the highest level of play :D). Thanks for the answer though! On July 24 2014 10:55 6xFPCs wrote: Honestly, I think gasless is just handing over map control and you'll need to watch for your opponent potentially faking you out, either threatening a ling-bane all-in or heavy drones. You can't punish him until roaches (short of some slow ling all-in craziness, which dies horribly to banes if they see if coming). I guess it's viable enough, it does see play at high levels, but there's a reason ZvZ builds grab gas at 17 supply or earlier, gas is super important. It's a nice mixup, especially if they assume you're getting gas as usual, but I wouldn't recommend it as a standard, go-to build in ZvZ. Better to learn how to ling-bane consistently. Well, I don't agree that much actually with the "you can't punish" part. If you see your opponent going for a really fast third upon scouting gasless, you can roach ling all-in him. If he won't see it coming it really works well, and since it's Impact's build, then I guess people don't see it coming. | ||
EsportsJohn
United States4883 Posts
On July 24 2014 10:58 Alchemik wrote: Yeah, sure, I know about the first one - I open with ling/bane. I guess I made it look like I open gasless, sorry, my fault. And about broodlords... meh, I don't really like using SH in ZvZ. (I don't like them in any match-up, but especially in ZvZ ). I guess I gotta try to make it as safe as possible, even if it can't be "safe" in the end. Maybe being aggresive with ling bane muta, taxing the multitasking of my opponent and keeping him busy while teching to broodlords might be the way? Or maybe somehow trying to turtle and only threating with mutas? Well, gotta try everything! (In diamond everything will work anyway, even if it's not that viable at the highest level of play :D). Thanks for the answer though! Well, the difficulty is that, at some point, you run the risk of just dying to a big maxed out push with roach/hydra/infestor (this is what I do with fairly consistent results), so it's really hard to keep going on muta/ling for too long. Blade55555's old guide of muta -> SH makes a lot of sense because it allows you to slow this push down and create room for the baneling flank, etc., while still getting free damage in. Most of the time, if you try to transition straight into hive tech, the roach/hydra/infestor army just walks all over you or just essentially base trades with lots of roaches. So I think it's a little precarious going straight into hive tech without SHs or roaches of your own to slow down or stop these types of pushes. | ||
Jowj
United States248 Posts
On July 24 2014 11:26 SC2John wrote: Well, the difficulty is that, at some point, you run the risk of just dying to a big maxed out push with roach/hydra/infestor (this is what I do with fairly consistent results), so it's really hard to keep going on muta/ling for too long. Blade55555's old guide of muta -> SH makes a lot of sense because it allows you to slow this push down and create room for the baneling flank, etc., while still getting free damage in. Most of the time, if you try to transition straight into hive tech, the roach/hydra/infestor army just walks all over you or just essentially base trades with lots of roaches. So I think it's a little precarious going straight into hive tech without SHs or roaches of your own to slow down or stop these types of pushes. Scarlett isn't going into SH before broods in her ZvZ games so i think there may be something we're missing. Unfortunately she's really the only one playing that style at the top level so we don't really have enough information. These are ways I've seen her play it:
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Solar424
United States4001 Posts
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