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Hey all, I am playing in the gold league, and I am really struggling with early aggression.
I've read a lot of guides, and spoken to a few other zerg players but the answers seem to be very generic. (Macro harder, build more lings, play better).
I am really struggling with any early aggression.
My build order tends to focus around macro oriented gameplay focusing on getting my hatchery down and going for a longer game.
Generally my build is:
Verse Terran - Verse Protoss 15 Hatch 15 Pool 16 Pool 16 Hatch 16 Overlord 16 Overlord 18 Double Queen 18 Double Queen
It's usually around when my queens pop that I am getting bum rushed by reapers/stalkers/etc... for an early aggression.
Usually at this point I am pretty strapped for minerals, and/or larvae.
I try to sacrifice an Overlord at the 6-7 minute mark, to see the way they are playing. But by this time it is usually too late.
More often than not, if I try to play aggressive I get out macro'ed.
What can I do?
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On July 30 2015 16:24 Vociferate wrote: Hey all, I am playing in the gold league, and I am really struggling with early aggression.
I've read a lot of guides, and spoken to a few other zerg players but the answers seem to be very generic. (Macro harder, build more lings, play better).
I am really struggling with any early aggression.
My build order tends to focus around macro oriented gameplay focusing on getting my hatchery down and going for a longer game.
Generally my build is:
Verse Terran - Verse Protoss 15 Hatch 15 Pool 16 Pool 16 Hatch 16 Overlord 16 Overlord 18 Double Queen 18 Double Queen
It's usually around when my queens pop that I am getting bum rushed by reapers/stalkers/etc... for an early aggression.
Usually at this point I am pretty strapped for minerals, and/or larvae.
I try to sacrifice an Overlord at the 6-7 minute mark, to see the way they are playing. But by this time it is usually too late.
More often than not, if I try to play aggressive I get out macro'ed.
What can I do?
Hey , indeed what can you do...well there several things you can do: 1.Scout at 6 min mark...sometimes if you scout at 7 min mark it's to late , but not entirely late.In gold where rushes are pretty common the 6 min mark is a must.If you see 1 base 4-5 gateways, well 1-2 spores at you natural,bring all your queens + lings if you have speed + some roaches if you went for a roach warren at the 6 min mark and you're fine vs anything what the toss will trow at you at this moment. 2.Most of the Terran agression early on comes from 1-3 reapers+ some hellions.If your control is good you can be safe just with queens and lings, but do not engage off creep.In this situation you also have to scout for that armory. If you scout that early on and you see +6 hellions a hell bat timing is coming.Against this queens and roaches will do well , but do not angage the hell bats with just lings cause you'll loose them.Baneligs are also good vs the hell bat timing.Be aware that most of the good terrans will add banshees in the mix with this attack or as a follow up. 3.Stick with 1 build vs toss and 1 build vs terran for at leat 30 games.Repeat that build till you get it right and the macro cycle comes natuarly.Check out Lowko's tutorials, they are pretty good for your problem. 4.Remember, Zerg is a reactive race when you're not planning of being the agresor early on (quite dumb quote i know, but it's a reality in SC2 ). 5.My advice is : focus on the macro and scouting.So what if you lose some games to early agression? Things like this happen a lot, and with time , you'll see that you will get better at defending this rushes.The most importang thing at your level noiw is MACRO,MACRO and MACRO and with a litlle bit of SCOUTING. 6.Do not make the mistake of make 5-6 drones, then 5-6 zerlings, then another 3-4 drones, then some more roaches...cause you're afraid of early pushes.This is a bad habit that most of the zerg players in lower leagues tend to make.Based on what you scout you determine the outcome of your production : drones or army.You scout an early Nexus or CC bam...drones and only drones... if you plan of playing passive. 7.After you think you got the build right and you think your MACRO is on point, just repeat that build for another 30 games..I garantee you that after those 60 games you will be so much better. 8.To not get bored with the same build , you can try to be agressive once every 5-6 game.Do a chesse or something weird. 9.SC2 is a game and games should be fun.If your're not haveing FUN , you should abandon it for a while. 10. GL HF!!!
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Haha thanks for the reply.
At the moment I am really only focusing on improving my macro. (Injecting all the time, especially when in a battle. Creep spread, and I do know I need to improve my scouting.)
I'll play more games, it's just tough that literally 70% of my games are against some sort of all in or bunker rush.
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you don't need OL until 17 for your hatch first build, but that's a trivial detail
it's confusing whether you're referring to cheesy hyper aggression like proxy reaper or 4gate/1 base blink or if you're talking about standard pressures. standard terran reaper will hit you just before your queens pop. you should have 4-6 lings building during that time too. when he starts poking your drones, select them and micro them away. if it helps, you can hotkey the targeted drones to run them all together. if they're going to die make an extractor or spore crawler. if it's mass proxy reaper (like more than three) you need a spine in your mineral line and queen production until ling speed, and keep stacking your drones on a central patch when he tries to poke
against standard timed reaper with a bunker don't overreact, just make a spine and wait for your queen+lings. if you defend well you can even cancel the spine. if it's 2rax marine then honestly do whatever and hope it works. it's either mass spine or bane bust the bunker wall into bane allin. ive seen roaches work but it's not ideal. try to deny the bunkers with drone pulls before units arrive
if toss rushes out a stalker at you that early (which is pretty unusual to be honest) you probably need to pull a couple of drones to protect your queen while making lings behind it, but you should really have at least two lings scouting by the time there's a stalker. the most important thing is to identify early on is when protoss expands. a four minute expansion means gate cyber expand which can indicate aggression. no expansion by past four minutes means you're either getting 4gated (confirm by scouting one gas in main) or tech rushed, which can be oracle, DT or blink. ling speed and safety spores are a solid response to one base tech.
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At least against Terran: after your double queen finishes. Another round of queens. And then another round (and if you feel very insecure you can even go up to 8 queens). This is better then blindly building units because all your larva can go into drones and you can "macro harder". Queens are really tanky and can push back most hellbat pushes. Additionally, this will allow you to have insane creep spread. With time you then should try to lower the queen count. At some point you are good enough that 6 will keep you save. Or you will only need 4 and a spine. And so on.
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^ actually unless you are gasless you don't build double queen after the first pair in zvt. this limits, rather than increasing, your drone production because you can't support gas mining, speed, 4 queens, third base at 6 mins and full droning. generally you produce queens constantly from the natural one by one up to 5-7. lots of queens is okay and youre correct that it's a nice defensive style against helkbats and banshees, but it's not the way to maximize your droning as you suggest, queens cost minerals and supply. the best thing imo is to learn a standard queen/ling defense with safety spores and just drone all you want after the pressure
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Ah ok. Actually, I play gasless, should have added this.
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