[D] ZvP: Preventing their third

Hey all,

Diamond Zerg here, having tons of trouble against Protoss on bigger maps where they can quickly take a third, and easily block everything off. Entombed Valley is probably the worst.

Here's how the flow of the game almost always goes:

- I drone scout at 13, 15p/15h
- Scout FFE, take second expo at 23
- Work on droning up to have decent economy against 2-base toss, scout around with lings for hidden pylons, tomfoolery, etc.
- Usually scout breaking rocks/taking expo around 9:00ish, by then they have a moderate gateway army, and by the time I build a force to react, they are solidly walled-in.
- Now I either throw units against it trying desperately to break it, or retreat and get rolled a few minutes later by a 3-base Protoss.

In general, not just limited to this specific circumstance, I'm having trouble stopping any walling-in Brotoss from taking their third, and once they have it, I feel absolutely helpless.

This sounds like whining but it's meant to be discussion, because I searched and saw nothing about stopping the Protoss' third base as Zerg, and I feel that's likely the most difficult part in my current ZvP.

Any tips, ideas, or strategies that helps stop them from stomping with turtling and mass economy?

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MountainGoat United States. May 13 2012 16:21. Posts 473

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Instead of trying to build a force to react I would try just droning and teching up even further while putting up spinecrawlers and then you'll be way ahead of the Protoss if he doesn't pressure you. Heading towards broodlords is usually really good if you can be on a solid economic foundation.

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MadProbe United States. May 13 2012 16:22. Posts 174

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im low master protoss on NA. what rly bugs me is stephano style roaches where you atk 3rd and natural at the same time... or sometimes fast muta can throw me off.

if i were you though, i'd just take 2 more bases and get a super crazy economy, and maybe go fast broods, because you know protoss isn't doing a 2 base allin and might not even attack you at all for a while.

because as a protoss, i know i MUST do some sort of 2 base pressure vs zerg or else they just become so far ahead in econ that i simply cannot win.

gl.

lhr0909 United States. May 13 2012 16:43. Posts 531

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Umm, there is a rule of thumb for punishing thirds, which is if you think you can do it cost efficiently.

On maps like daybreak or could kingdom, even korhal compound, you can do it very well by splitting your roach army and just keep pushing with them on both natural and the third and try to pick him apart. However, on maps like entombed valley, the best response in my opinon is to take a fast fourth and go for spine/infestor into BLs, unless you think you can clearly break his third, which most of time, on that particular map, is very hard. If you don't think you can do it cost efficiently, you have to fall back and do a long term play.

For me, I just don't enjoy playing late game ZvP at the moment, so I veto'ed the map and called it good.

gl hf

No Pain No Gain

Complete United States. May 13 2012 16:46. Posts 808

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As a protoss I've always thought quick broods (eg you're in my base by 15:30 with roach/broods) is super strong, and a protoss who goes for a quick 3rd wont be able to do anything to stop you. No way MS is out either, so i at least sounds solid to me.

But tbh, there are plenty of ways to break the 3rd, specifically with the mass roach style. In addition, something I haven't seen in a while, I'd recommend researching drop as well, the more spread out your roaches are the less effective FF's will be which is good for you. Hitting in 3 places with an 80 supply lead cant be held very easily.

Another tip, as soon as you start making units, start sending them accross the map (assuming you aren't being harrasesed/he didnt go air). Make sure you have his watch tower. Limit his vision as best you can, bring a queen and an overseer to clear any observers as well. You don't need to wait to be maxed on roaches to attack. All it takes is one misstep with sentries/their energy and it effectively becomes near impossible to hold a roach flood from 2-3 attack paths.

Scout the 3rd early, if you see it go down at the 8 minute mark, all it takes is starting unit production one larva inject cycle earlier than standard stephano timing and there's no possible way he holds it, and he likely loses his sentries (and the game) trying.

Last edit: 2012-05-13 16:52:40

ArcticRaven France. May 13 2012 17:19. Posts 1163

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What is that standard Stephano timing to begin units ?

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naggerNZ New Zealand. May 13 2012 17:21. Posts 700

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Take two more bases, drone to 80 if you aren't already, mass spines, tech to Brodlord/Infestor.

If you get like 10-15 spinecrawlers out, it will mean your opponent wont be able to attack efficiently until they have a decent number of colossus out. When you see a protoss take their third you know you have a bit more room to drone, and Broodlord/Infestor is the only late-game unit composition which can trade effectively with a late-game Protoss army. You'll at the very least delay them until they get Mothership or a lot of Blink Stalkers (dont be afraid to retreat with broodlords if he blinks under them). If he gets a mothership out, keep your broodlords spread out or you risk getting vortexed.

The alternative is to go for Mass Mutalisk, get a lot of spines up to stop counter attacks, pick off tech, probes, and small groups of stray units and when he eventually attacks, go for a base trade.

Those are really the two main lategame ZvP strategies atm.

Grohg United States. May 13 2012 18:10. Posts 243

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On May 13 2012 17:19 ArcticRaven wrote:
What is that standard Stephano timing to begin units ?

If you are talking about the roach max, you typically drone until 8 mins and switch into roach production. If you get early zealot pressure, you simply respond by making those units earlier. If you scout a later 2 base push or a fast 3rd, you can delay unit until even later (around 9 mins). At this point you have the economy to pump roaches off of 4 gases with lair, +1 ranged, roach speed, and ling speed on the way or finished. This is the rough outline at least...you just need to be able to gauge what the Protoss is doing.

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Belial88 United States. May 13 2012 18:10. Posts 5217

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Why haven't you vetoed entombed valley? There are no bs maps anymore, so you are free to veto the worst map in the pool. That leaves you more than enough vetos to choose between TDA, antiga, and korhal.

No replay?

Just read my thread... it was pretty much created to answer these types of questions.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=320038

It really sounds like a macro issue. There's no way a Toss can take a 9:00 expo on most maps (except on entombed valley... just veto it, it's definitely broken ZvP, Toss can either do a cheesy all-in or stupidly take a third with a single sentry, and you can't do anything to counterpush and deny it). You should be at least at 65+ supply by 8:00. If you are doing that with fast third, and drone up to 8:00-9:00 depending on how much gas Toss took (ie as long as he took gas, drone up to 9:00, with maybe a few roaches made at 8:00 if really necessary), and then pump roach/ling from 9:00, you should delay Toss' third until a more 'honest' 11:00+.

Also, roach max isn't the only option (and maps like entombed valley are just the worst for roach max) - going mutas is a great way to punish fast third Toss, or you can go super fast infestor/hive by going infestors, 2 more bases, 100+ drones as soon as you see them going third, and then progress toward a very fast hive and 50+ spines as you make 10 spines, replace the 10 drones, make 10 more spines, replace 10 drones, and so on until you have 50+ spines, and BL tech, and enough gas to make a pure bl/infestor army.

Last edit: 2012-05-13 18:15:11

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ArcticRaven France. May 13 2012 22:00. Posts 1163

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On May 13 2012 18:10 Grohg wrote:

Show nested quote +

Thank you very much !

Oh and also of course vetoing Entombed will solve the problem. It's bad for zerg in so many ways it's incredible.

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Feskarn Sweden. May 14 2012 01:22. Posts 4

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If you're not getting pressured, i've always felt that droning up to 75 and getting a fourth base is the best, and rush up to broodlords.

a three base toss is nothing comparing to a 4-5 base zerg with broodlord infestor army.

saus baus

Befall United States. May 14 2012 04:02. Posts 69

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Fantastic answers, thank you so much everyone. I didn't realize Entombed was so terrible for ZvP.

Drops, multiple angles of attacking, heavy spines, all things I haven't tried that I'd love to.

Thanks again.

"Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide." -Emerson

zylog Canada. May 14 2012 04:18. Posts 941

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On May 13 2012 16:22 MadProbe wrote:
im low master protoss on NA. what rly bugs me is stephano style roaches where you atk 3rd and natural at the same time... or sometimes fast muta can throw me off.

if i were you though, i'd just take 2 more bases and get a super crazy economy, and maybe go fast broods, because you know protoss isn't doing a 2 base allin and might not even attack you at all for a while.

because as a protoss, i know i MUST do some sort of 2 base pressure vs zerg or else they just become so far ahead in econ that i simply cannot win.

gl.

It's funny because max roach pressure is something I never saw Stephano do on this map. He'd go mass muta, roach hydra, roach drop, infestor ling, etc. but never fast maxed roach attacks because it is so hard to pull off against competent opponents. I think he's since vetoed this map from his ladder pool.

Noak3 United States. May 14 2012 14:44. Posts 223

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On May 13 2012 18:10 Belial88 wrote:

It really sounds like a macro issue. There's no way a Toss can take a 9:00 expo on most maps (except on entombed valley... just veto it, it's definitely broken ZvP, Toss can either do a cheesy all-in or stupidly take a third with a single sentry, and you can't do anything to counterpush and deny it). You should be at least at 65+ supply by 8:00. If you are doing that with fast third, and drone up to 8:00-9:00 depending on how much gas Toss took (ie as long as he took gas, drone up to 9:00, with maybe a few roaches made at 8:00 if really necessary), and then pump roach/ling from 9:00, you should delay Toss' third until a more 'honest' 11:00+.

This isn't true. A toss can take a 7-minute 3rd on some maps and wall if off with cannons and gates, and have enough sentries to stall until you can get a good immortal/stalker count to hold 11-minute roach pressure. This is what many good korean protosses have switched to doing.

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Xequecal United States. May 14 2012 16:12. Posts 374

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Below high master/grandmaster, there's a fairly easy strategy to beat Protoss on ladder right now.

First, and most importantly, there are five maps on ladder right now (TDA, CK, Daybreak, Ohana, Entombed) that allow Protoss to take a third, and you need to veto three of them to minimize your chances on facing a Protoss on one of these maps. I would veto CK, Ohana, and Entombed, the majority of Protoss will veto TDA because of how retarded the mirror is on this map. That leaves you only one map (Daybreak) that you have to deal with Protoss thirds on without the thirds being an autowin for you, and it's the hardest map to hold the third on against mass roach. (as opposed to the rest, where's it's basically impossible)

The key for Protoss holding a third against roach attacks is always keeping buildings in between your army and his army. If he can do this, breaking him is extremely hard. If he can't do this, there's no way he can hold a third against mass roach without doing significant damage to you first. Those five maps allow the Protoss to wall so he can do this, the rest of the maps don't allow it.

You want to do a standard fast third but only drone up to 50-60 drones. Don't take the third's gasses and get a really early roach warren. Once you're at ~54 drones stop droning and just start spamming roach/ling.. As long as you're not playing on one of those five maps a Protoss without extremely high APM will just be helpless. If he tries to go for a third, your roach ball will just steamroll him as he can't possibly position his army so there are always buildings between you and it. For example on Antiga, if his army is in his third, just swarm into his natural. Even if he backstabs you and lands absolutely perfect forcefields splitting your roach ball in half and allowing him to massacre the half that was trapped with few losses, you can just take the other half that got pushed towards his natural and completely destroy all his probes, tech, and probably even kill a nexus before he can deal with it.

If he does a 2-base allin, well you have the super early warren and started spamming roaches really early, so you're in the best possible position you can be against said allins. Protoss allins are really strong and you'll still have to practice, but you'll never get caught off guard with a build order loss.

If he does something like 2-base tech, just spam roach/ling until like 150/200 supply, if there's no sign of an allin by then just take your third's gases and drop a spire, and start massing mutas in anticipation of the base trade. He can't get templar and colossus tech on 2 bases. If he moves out with a bunch of colossi just put down a billion spines and hatches all over the map and base trade him with the mutas and roaches backstabbing him. If he has templar instead your roaches will just crush him as storm is shit against roaches.

Is this strategy unbeatable? No, it's not, but below very high master Protoss simply do not have the multitasking ability required to execute the strategies that beat it. It's very weak to stargate openings but stargate openings are awful below high master, as these Protoss players cannot possibly keep macroing with any degree of effectiveness while microing air units. Even if you take damage, this will be balanced out by the fact that Protoss will end up sitting on massive amounts of resources because he can't micro his air units while continuing to make probes/pylons/tech buildings/build units.

Take it from a Protoss player that's played a lot of games, Stargate openings are not good if you're not high master or higher. If your opponent does one to you and does massive damage and you think you're dead, you're probably actually not dead because he completely neglected his macro. I did stargate openings a lot, and even when they worked, they didn't work because after focusing on all that air unit microing you ended up supply blocked with 2000/1000 banked and completely helpless. I played at least half a dozen games where I managed to kill something like 6 queens, a dozen overlords, and their main base lair and still lost the game by a mile because when I finally killed the lair hydralisks were out, and oops, I now have 2000/1000 resources and no tech, not even a facility, colossi are at least three minutes away and I'm just screwed.

Last edit: 2012-05-14 16:25:27

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