I want to say, that I am by no means a very good player which is why I need you guys to comment on my analysis and to tell me if there are things where I am wrong and maybe add some points which seem interesting to you. I think that there are a lot of things in this analysis which seem to be trivial to most players but there may also be some things you haven't really thought about yet. This is a mixture of a [Discussion] and a [Guide] with the discussion being about when you are safe to drone and when you should be afraid to do so and the guide being about Dimaga's playstyle in this match-up especially on this map but to a certain extent for the other maps too.
General Playstyle
- No Dronescout. The only early scout is the first Overord, which is rallied along the outside of the Protoss base checking the ramp for buildings and possible cronoboosts. The Overlord is then sent to the space between the Protoss main and the natural.
- He sends the second Overlord to the own natural to check for the incoming probe and possible cannon rushes.
- 14 gas: He mines gas until he has 100 then he pulls his drones off of gas.
- 14 pool: As soon as the pool finishes he gets speed and a Queen.
- 15 supply: Queen + Zerglingspeed
- He produces 4 Lings. One Zergling is placed at each of the Xel'Naga Tower, one Zergling is placed in front of the Protoss ramp poking in and out all the time to get some information. The last ling is checking the map for proxy-pylons or hidden tech.
- 21 supply: Expand
- The second Queen is started right after the first one finishes (24 supply). When the second Queen pops out it lies down a creep tumor and then moves over to the natural.
- After the first base is saturated (16-20 drones on minerals + 3 drones for the gas) Dimaga likes to produce some lings, about 10-12 to do a bit more poking and to apply some pressure, maybe make the Protoss waste some Forcefields, if he expands. After this early unit production he continues to drone up.
- When the natural expansion is about 80% finished he throws down a roach warren.
- Shortly before he begins his Lair Tech he builds his second Extractor. The timing of the Lair tech depends on how safe he feels. If he sees that Protoss is expanding and the early lings he produced are still alive he is starting his tech quite early ~43 supply. If Protoss hasn't expanded, or if Dimaga lost some of the early units he produced, or if he hasn't produced any additional units yet, he builds some roaches and delays the tech until he knows what's going on or if he has enough units to be safe. If Protoss is expanding and no early Zerglings were built he gets around 6 Roaches and some excess resources and larva before he starts his tech.
- If he feels safe while teching to Lair he gets both gases at his natural around 25%-50% of the Lair tech. If he expects early pressure or doesn't have a lot of information at all he only takes one gas. If he sees a robo f.e. he is pretty safe and he can expect that there won't be too much early pressure.
- In the period shortly after Protoss has expanded and Dimaga is teching to Lair, he saturates his second base (16-20 drones on minerals 3 drones on each extractor which was built). After he has saturated it he gets some Roaches and Zerglings. If he wants to save up some gas he builds more Zerglings if he has enough he gets more Roaches.
- When the Lair is finished he immediately gets Roach Speed and Burrow as a first priority. If he was able to get both gases at the natural and still feels safe (determined by poking in the Protoss Expansion with Zerglings) he gets the Hydra Den and an Evolution Chamber at the same time. When the Hydra Den and the Evolution Chamber finish he gets the Range upgrade and the +1 Range attack as soon as possible. When you get Burrow you force the Protoss to get Observers i.e. getting the robo tech and to get cannons to defend his natural. Protoss can't really move out of his base until the observer is out. If Protoss wants to apply some pressure after the robo tech has finished his immortal(s) are countered by the Hydras.
- If he has a hard time getting information he also upgrades Overlord speed and gets an Overseer.
- After the upgrades are done and he has some resources and Larva banked up he takes his third at the normal mineral field right beside his natural.
- When he starts building his third base he gets a good chunk of units hydras (around 10) if he took the 2 gases at the natural and if he only took one gas at the natural a chunk of roaches to be safe against early attacks with a lot of Gateway units and a small amount of robo units (~ 1 immortal + 1 colossi).
- The army composition relies on the available resources. If he took the 2 gases at the natural at the same time his early army consists of roaches and Hydras in about a 3:2 ratio. If he only took one gas there are only roaches for quite some time. Hydras are added later but there are far less Hydras than with the earlier 4th Extractor. As the game progresses and the Colossi number rises he produces way more roaches and Corrupters than Hydras. Another deciding factor is the Sentry count. If there are a lot of sentries (or sentry energy) Roaches are very inefficient. If there are no Sentries or if they don't have anymore energy roaches get very cost-efficient.
- After this first round of Hydras he starts his Spire (~11-12 minute mark). Of course the timing of the spire relies on how fast the Protoss is teching. If he has no information he just builds the Spire anyway. When the Spire is around 50% done and he sees that the Protoss is going for Colossi he tries to build up some excess gas by building mainly drones and Zerglings so that he can get out a lot of Corrupters fast when the Spire finishes.
- The most important thing about the third base is the Gas, so he takes the two gases as soon as possible. He also gets the +2 Range attack upgrade before he gets the +1 Carapace.
- His goal is to have a bit of a Corrupter overkill. He likes to have around 11-12 corrupter for 4 Colossi. The reason for this is that when he fights and kills all the Colossi but loses a lot of his ground forces and has to retreat, he can reinforce with Hydra/Ling which is a very efficient unit combination if the Protoss has a small amount of Colossi and a high amount of Stalker/Sentry. Dimaga also starts attacking as soon as these reinforcements arrive and is able to put a lot of pressure on the Protoss.
- That is how most of the games end, either he is able to break the protoss or the Protoss is able to defend and then get to a critical mass of units.
Storing Larva and Resources
One thing I noticed is that if Dimaga doesn't know what his opponent is up to he starts to save up some larva and resources to be able to react properly. If he is close to be maxed he tries to get some information of the army composition of his opponent before filling up his supply. So that he doesn't end up with an suboptimal army composition.
How to react to unscouted phoenix play
If the Protoss goes for phoenixes the tech of Dimaga should be delayed because he doesn't know whats going on. That means that the Lair tech hasn't started yet. If he sees the Phoenixes he immediately throws down an evolution chamber and starts to produce two more Queens. When the Evolution Chamber finishes he throws down spore crawlers as soon as possible.
Resource Management
One thing I noticed about Dimaga's play is that he is extremly good in getting the units he wants from the resources which are available to him. If he knows he wants to produce some Corrupters soon he squeezes in some Zerglings to build up some excess gas. He does this constantly and throughout the whole game. This might sound trivial but it is really impressive if you watch it closely.
Overlord sacrifice timings
- 4:35 Stargate if Protoss does a 1-base phoenix build.
- 7:20 Robotics Facility if Protoss does a 3-Gate Sentry Expand.
- 4:50 4-Gate
- 1-base Voidray build ??? Is it the same as the 1-base phoenix build?
- ~8:00 6 Gateways should be up. Another indication would be that the 7:20 Overlord doesn't see any tech buildings.
When to feel safe and when to be afraid
This is where I need your help. It would be great if we could list all the indications for aggressive/passive Protoss play. Also please tell me if there is something wrong with my list so that I can change it.
Early-Game:
- Zealot + Stalker + Cronoboosted Cybernetics Core --> 4-Gate very likely
- Zealot + Stalker + Cybernetics Core is not Cronoboosted --> Tech (maybe Stargate) --> safe to drone but get ready for air units!
- Zealot + Sentry + Cybernetics Core is not Cronoboosted --> 3-Gate expand very likely --> safe to drone
- Zealot + Sentry + Cybernetics Core is Cronoboosted --> 3-Gate expand very likely --> safe to drone
- Early double gas + Lots of Zealots + very few Sentries --> possible DT rush --> safe to drone but get your detection up!
Mid-Game (after the Protoss expanded):
- If you get Burrow and Roach Speed you are fine for some time --> safe to drone
- Robo-Bay --> Protoss attack won't be that early --> safe to drone
- Indicator for a 6-Gate ???
Late-Game (Protoss has a decent sized army which is able to attack at any moment):
- You can't really make big rounds of drones like in the early or mid-game. You have to squeeze one in from time to time.
- If there was a fight and you killed all the Colossi there is a time-window where Protoss isn't really able to attack you.
Relevant Replays
The replays I used can be found here:
1) mTwDIMAGA vs. PwRelfi
Standard Game #1
2) mTwDIMAGA vs. DuckloadRa
Standard Game #2
3) mTwDIMAGA vs. mouzMaNa
Mana techs to fast Phoenixes
Thanks for reading
Thanks to the people which added content to the OP or made suggestions:
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- naventus
- friscosav
- hox
- drsnuggles
- iChau
- Alejandrisha
- memcpy
- Tsabo