[sRFullstop]

I played a ladder game against a Protoss who went FFE into single Stargate, building Void Rays. He reinforced with zealots and hit my third base. I lost it, and the game went downhill from there. I had enough stuff to repel his push in the end but he had his third up after he pushed and I only rebuilt mine after he retreated. I proceeded to try to whittle down his army but his reinforcing capabilities were much stronger than mine.

I need some help in countering this push. Hydras don't come in time for the push when I go gasless 3 base in response to FFE. Queens are not fast enough to defend the third and Roaches die to Voids after cleaning up the Zealots.

The replay can be downloaded here.

+ [Own analysis] +

Good:

- Scouted with lings just in time to see the Void Ray and could prepare for it
- OK droning in the beginning
- Early third base in response to FFe

Bad:

- Overreacted a bit to that initial one zealot
- Did not scout early enough to get more queens immediately
- Not enough spores?
- Did not know how to react at all resulting in me losing all my roaches, queens and spores
- Lair too late?

[mGGAequitas]

note: i didnt watch the replay
imo when u scout a ffe from toss its not a good idea to take ur third straight away if i were in this situation i would immediatly build double stargate build 4 voids then continous phix and smash ur natural then move onto ur main. its very difficult to defend if you are being too greedy.

anyway one stargate is a common follow up to a ffe because ffe leaves the toss playing very defensive so the stargate is for map control also since they have a forge they might as well get +1 weapons which is what im assuming ur opponent did and and a bunch of extra gates.

in regards to stopping it; queens rape the shit out of voidrays (so do mutas but that seems to be too late for this push) especially if you save energy for transfuse. A spine crawler or 2 to help ur roaches/lings/blings with the zealots. also you said you killed all the zealots so make sure that ur queens dont charge head first into the zealots and voids, keeep them back and make sure they survive (they have massive air range)

Quick Comments

Eldrid:

[mGGDaedalus]

Originally Posted by Aequitas

note: i didnt watch the replay
imo when u scout a ffe from toss its not a good idea to take ur third straight away if i were in this situation i would immediatly build double stargate build 4 voids then continous phix and smash ur natural then move onto ur main. its very difficult to defend if you are being too greedy.

It depends on the map (and whether you wanna play macro or do some sort of all in/cheese), but generally you DO want your 3rd up against ffe stargate. In fact you want it up early enough so that it's finished and you have a queen and any necessary spore crawlers to defend by the time the void rays get there. If the hatch is not already up by the time void rays get out (especially if your 3rd is not connected by creep to your nat), it actually puts zerg in a really bad spot.

[crAzerk]

I would love to see some responses from the top Zergs here, I seem to be losing quite a bit to Stargate FFE openers lately as well.
The most annoying I've seen is on maps where you can't check their natural's gases, and he denies OL scout into his main, so you really can't be sure what he's doing... then he does a delayed double Stargate rush (waits for 3 VRs + a few Phoenix) which even if you anticipate (with for example, 1 Spore at each base and an extra Queen) is pretty hard to hold without proper AA like Hydras.

I'll just have a look at your replay to see if you make similar mistakes to me.

+ [Pointers] +

• Zero scouting on your part. You want to be sending in an OL at about 7-8 mins to check his tech path. It's good to have another OL to check his expo's gas timings as well
• The lack of scouting led to your 4 (blind) spines
• Drone count was abit low, can afford to go up to 50 I believe (generally recommended go to 55 then react). He wasn't very good in probe production, typical Protoss may have more/equal probes than you already (at the time of push)
• Started mining 2nd gas way too early. This resulted in you floating a good 400-500 gas for no reason. Use it if you mined it! Upgrades, Lair, etc.
• A basic Roach Hydra force would have easily thwarted his push. Lack of AA clearly cost you the 3rd even though his push was really small for a 10minute timing.
• No real creep spread. If you had creep connecting to your 3rd your Queens would have made it to clear his Voids.
• Macro Hatch isn't hotkeyed (until much later)
• Spread creep with your extra Queens!
• Didn't think you were that far behind even after losing your 3rd simply because he wasn't really macroing that hard either. You could have taken a 4th together with retaking your 3rd, and go for a higher Drone count at 200/200. 56 is way too little.
• Roach Hydra isn't very good against Colussus Stalker VR deathball, especially offcreep where you can't get a solid concave. You're gonna need Corruptors to snipe those Colussi, or Infestors for Fungal /NP
• Virtually no upgrades after 0-1. Upgrades are VERY important especially against a Protoss who's going double Forge >< Protoss army is already stronger than Zerg army without upgrades (evenly matched), when they have upgrade advantage, you have no chance.
• Injects really slipped throughout the game, Queens were at full energy. Injects are essential for Zerg macro, without them, you can't reproduce fast.

Quick Comments

sRFullstop:

[sRFullstop]

Originally Posted by crAzerk

I would love to see some responses from the top Zergs here, I seem to be losing quite a bit to Stargate FFE openers lately as well.
The most annoying I've seen is on maps where you can't check their natural's gases, and he denies OL scout into his main, so you really can't be sure what he's doing... then he does a delayed double Stargate rush (waits for 3 VRs + a few Phoenix) which even if you anticipate (with for example, 1 Spore at each base and an extra Queen) is pretty hard to hold without proper AA like Hydras.

I'll just have a look at your replay to see if you make similar mistakes to me.

+ [Pointers] +

• Zero scouting on your part. You want to be sending in an OL at about 7-8 mins to check his tech path. It's good to have another OL to check his expo's gas timings as well
• The lack of scouting led to your 4 (blind) spines
• Drone count was abit low, can afford to go up to 50 I believe (generally recommended go to 55 then react). He wasn't very good in probe production, typical Protoss may have more/equal probes than you already (at the time of push)
• Started mining 2nd gas way too early. This resulted in you floating a good 400-500 gas for no reason. Use it if you mined it! Upgrades, Lair, etc.
• A basic Roach Hydra force would have easily thwarted his push. Lack of AA clearly cost you the 3rd even though his push was really small for a 10minute timing.
• No real creep spread. If you had creep connecting to your 3rd your Queens would have made it to clear his Voids.
• Macro Hatch isn't hotkeyed (until much later)
• Spread creep with your extra Queens!
• Didn't think you were that far behind even after losing your 3rd simply because he wasn't really macroing that hard either. You could have taken a 4th together with retaking your 3rd, and go for a higher Drone count at 200/200. 56 is way too little.
• Roach Hydra isn't very good against Colussus Stalker VR deathball, especially offcreep where you can't get a solid concave. You're gonna need Corruptors to snipe those Colussi, or Infestors for Fungal /NP
• Virtually no upgrades after 0-1. Upgrades are VERY important especially against a Protoss who's going double Forge >< Protoss army is already stronger than Zerg army without upgrades (evenly matched), when they have upgrade advantage, you have no chance.
• Injects really slipped throughout the game, Queens were at full energy. Injects are essential for Zerg macro, without them, you can't reproduce fast.

Thank you for those tips. Is it 100% possible to spread creep to your third before the push comes, or is it map dependent?

I know my macro and upgrades slipped because I panicked and made mass units. I assumed he had a very strong follow-up push which triggered me to pump units in anticipation... If I got up more bases and more drones I would've been in a decent position... His harass with Warp Prism caused a lot of trouble as well.

Addressing the original problem that we apparently both have (but you most likely have way better mechanics and psychological mindset), what do you believe is the best way to defend the push? You mentioned Roach Hydra, but do Hydras come out fast enough (I am not sure).

Quoting Eldrid

I didn't put 4 spines because of the one zealot, I saw him chrono-ing his upgrade so I thought it might be a 5/6 gate but I forgot to check

Thank you for the help with the Colossus deathball. What should I have done in my position, with not as strong of an economy as one would hope at that stage of the game, and only lings, roaches and hydras? Tech to hive straight away and get broods, get spire etc.? If I went with Infestors rather than Corrupters, wouldn't the Colossi rape my entire army?

[Eldrid]

I think once the timing's i mentioned passed you had invested too much in your army, too little in your econ, he had basically hard countered your army (this really is as much of a hard counter that there is in sc2 - protoss death ball is kindve designed to kill roach/hydra by itself, -especially- when not pre-spread and controlled exceptionally well) and there wasnt really much you couldve done (Except some fancy amazing control where you attack 3 locations at once or something...)

Theres no reason you cant get your creep to your third by 7-10 min, yeah. on most maps... get 2 queens as soon as your pool/hatch finishes, and then a 3rd at your main. Lay a tumor with it and send it to your natural, and just keep laying tumors with it. when your third finishes, thats the queen for your third. You should have 3-5 tumors pushing to your third (and beyond) if none get killed.

I want to go back to how you couldve won the game after the timings i mentioned. If the protoss decided to not attack you for a long while (this would be in this situation the wrong decision, but if he made that wrong decision) you may have a timing to get spire/hive/broodlords but realistically this wont work - youd need a solid 4-5min to get these out, so... i think what i said before on this pretty much sums that up!

[mGGAequitas]

crazerk u should b able to hold off the ffe double stargate with 6 queens and a spore very easily while you tech to hydra. just make sure your bases are connected with creep so u can actually fight with all 6 queens

[Eldrid]

Hey Fullstop!

Ive watched your replay and i think i can help you.

You're definately correct, you hugely over-reacted to that 1 zealot. This is very important. You made about 6 ~ lings (this isnt so bad...) and 4 spines blindly. That's huge, just so you can understand - that is about 12 immediate drones (400 minerals from the spines + 4 drones to make them), as well as future drones from the income those 12 missing drones would have generated!

This obviously comes down to scouting and general knowledge. Protoss cant really mount any sort of real offensive on you until 9-10 minutes (generic 6gate) and this is if it is reasonably well executed. There are other variants (2base 4gate, 6gate zealot etc) which can come significantly earlier, but you really wont be facing these until very high masters or even gm, even then they are rare because they're very all-in.
A good time to sacrifice an overlord is at the 6 minute mark. Note: I dont actually always do this, as it is not 100% guaranteed (infact much lower - it can easily be denied).

This is where a good build comes into play. If you take earlier gases (which you will be able to afford because you wont have over-reacted to a scouting zealot, hopefully!) you can get good, useful upgrades (+1/+1, burrow, hydra den etc) and get an 8-9min overseer to send into their base to confirm if they are doing a 2 base push or teching/expanding.

If you do manage to get yourself into this situation (3 or 4 base zerg to 3base protoss, etc) where you are fighting a protoss death ball (4-5+ collossus, some gateway units, and however many voidrays) your best bet is Roach infestor broodlord (I actually like muta/ling, however this is a completely different strat - the above is the unit comp you want to aim for for roach play). You cant really stay on just roach/hydra, it just isnt effective at this stage of the game against the protoss' super high tech "ball". I would also suggest using multi prong harrass and drops if the protoss gets this unit comp, but if you are below masters this is the least of your worries for the time being!

Misc notes;
try and spread creep a little better, at a bare minimum to your third so you can move your queens between bases if needed.
I have started making a blind hydra den vs all protoss asap after lair (only when i dont get a good early scout of his entire base which is 95% of my zvp's) - this is great vs anything protoss that is not collossus or high templar, and these generally dont come out straight away so your hydras (if even you make any, you dont even need to build them, you can get it just incase!) will be useful for a little while no matter what.

All of this aside, in this game there was actually a moment where you could have won if you knew what was going on! (better scouting, sacrifice a ling, fly an overseer around etc)

@ about 16-17:30 minutes you had a huge gap.
@ 16:00 you had 11 hydra and a bunch of roaches vs 3 voids and a couple stalkers, and at 17:15 you had 25 hydra and a bunch of roaches to 3 voids and a couple stalkers and 2 half finished (not yet on the field, but if you move out @ 17:15 they would be by the time you get to his base).

If you move out at either of these timings, the first being more potent i think, you would -AT A BARE MINIMUM- kill the protoss' third, and with reinforcements almost definately kill him altogether.

Watch this part of the game a few times. Your army sits around for a few minutes doing nothing, effectively those units (or a good portion of them) couldve been drones and extra bases!

Quick Comments

	sRFullstop:
	Nemo:	good too :)

[syfChadMann]

When you guys work it out.. Tell maynarde! XD..
But as a Protoss doing this.. You can either rush for hydra's (easy out in time) and go ling hydra composition.. Or get enough spores and extra queens.. I think the evo timing vs this is at Zerg 30-40 supply.. Get ur Evo and spores soon after.. (I think this is similar to DT timings so good time for Evo regardless...) and 2-3 well placed spores should hold air attack (with queens)..

But best thing is just to practice against it and work out what works for you!

[crAzerk]

One thing I hate about using Spores to defend is because they MUST be 'well-placed Spores' and I somehow suck at that haha =X

If you don't have good Spore placement he'll be able to exploit it easily with his VRs and if you don't rally your Hydras well he's going to pick it apart with Phoenix.

[EveMassacrisM]

When I scout a fast stargate I just make lots and lots of lings, morph them to banelings and smash the forge expo. It works surprisingly well, plus it's pretty hilarious. The Protoss would have to turn around to defend his base = voids/phoenixes unmicroed = dead + time to get extra queens.

Quick Comments

sRFullstop:

[crAzerk]

I wouldn't go as far to say that Colussi deathball is a 'hard counter' to roach/hydra, that's overstating it. Roach/Hydra can manage up to a certain number of Colussi (4? ) after which it gets ugly (regardless of concave)
(A famous player who somehow beats Colussi deathball with just Roach/hydra is Idra, but then again he has crazy macro skillz so let's not consider him too much)

Originally Posted by Fullstop

Is it 100% possible to spread creep to your third before the push comes, or is it map dependent?

Of course it is map dependent. Offhand I can think of one map that you can't, TDA (assuming you take the further 3rd and not the rocks 3rd. If rocks 3rd yes, you can spread it there)
Personally I always make it a point to get a very early tumor (first 25 energy of both queens) and start spreading it early. I'm not sure if this is ideal (think it's not actually, haha!) as it may larva block your mass-drone production early, but it gets my creep out well

Originally Posted by Fullstop

what do you believe is the best way to defend the push? You mentioned Roach Hydra, but do Hydras come out fast enough (I am not sure)

The push he did on you? It was sloppy (late) and small, you would easy have a small number of roach/hydra out by the time he hits.
If it was a more streamlined build, like perhaps a +1 timing with VRs, you prob need to use Queens to Focusfire VRs, as Hydras may not be out.

Thank you for the help with the Colossus deathball. What should I have done in my position, with not as strong of an economy as one would hope at that stage of the game, and only lings, roaches and hydras? Tech to hive straight away and get broods, get spire etc.? If I went with Infestors rather than Corrupters, wouldn't the Colossi rape my entire army?

I find in general if your opponent has decent macro you are going to need T3 to beat his army. You can go Roach heavy /hydras with corruptors (definitely need these to focusfire Colussi), and eventually roach-broodlords. Don't forget your upgrades!
If you are talking about specific to that game, I think Eldrid pretty much nailed it with how you missed your small timing windows to engage.

AND a very important point is you missed far too many injects! You couldn't re-max immediately simply because of your larva, not resources (if I don't remember wrongly)

I hope I'm not sounding condescending saying that his macro is bad and this and that, but I want to give you the answer to 'how to beat a decent opponent' not just 'how to beat that particular player you played'.

[aLtShortizz]

I didnt watch the replay but if ur talking about the zealot pressure followed up by a Single VR + some phoenix harassment, this is very common on maps where Zerg tends to take a 3rd against FFE.

If your gonna get a 3rd, make sure u have ur 3rd queen out early to spread creep and connect your bases. Put down 1 spore immediately once ur 3rd is up, and with a queen, that VR is not gonna do any dmg. Even with phoenix support, your 4 queens at 1 spore at each base shld be enough to repel him without taking much dmg.

As for the zealot pressure, it really depends on how many he makes. If its anything less than 4-5, i usually just use slow lings + queens against them. U might think that losing too many lings so early against the zealots is bad, but remmeber, 4-500 Minerals also hurt protoss quite abit.

If however, its a warpgate zealot + VR timing then roaches and queens are ur best bet to handle it while u tech to Hydras. Do remember that most Protoss transitions outta this to colossus or even double robo so be prepare to get ur spire and cut hydra production.

PS: I put a spore at my 3rd even though i didnt scout sheit these days. So many VR/DT/Warp prism shenaningans these days from protoss.

Quick Comments

mGGDaedalus:

[lolwut]

hmm. Good start, But you got an early gas and got speed rlly late. I think 15 pool 16 expo is better but thats just my opinion. Secondly You didn't take drones off gas at 100. You had around 160 gas instead of 100 and your right, You Did overeact with that 1st zealot.

With the voidrays I personally think you should have gotten a lair up a little earlier then you just could have thrown up a hydra den ASAP When you saw that 1st voidy. Roach Hydra will completely decimate voidray zealot .

When ur roach hydra dies usually muta/ling is an epic tech switch cuz you may catch them pants down with no archons .

So overall

Negatives.

Only roach hydra when they go collo.

Lost 3rd to voidys.

Late lair

only 1 upgrade.

Phew now that all that bad stuff is out of my head (thank god) I can move to positives

. Nice runby attempt, Keeping him on his toes.

. Good manners.

. Good work dealing with that zealot harrass

. Good work getting A hydra den Vs those voids.

^^ These are all just my opinions. I'm no GM but I am a decent plat/diamond player

gG wP! Cya round!

Quick Comments

sRFullstop:

[sRFullstop]

Thanks for your help guys. All very helpful comments!

[PiG]

Taking a fast 3rd is the right response.

Hydras do not pop in time. These voids are not a big issue. 2 queens and a spore deal with them easily enough. You simply didn't have creep spread or any units it was just 1 queen vs 3 voids.



Issues with your play:

- I prefer to just not get the gas and scout earlier (13) to confirm it is an FFE.
- you pull off gas slightly late, and then dont get ling speed. This would make zealot pressure much easier to deal with.
- you dont scout behind the zealot. a lone zealot dies to 4 lings if you micro so just build them as he arrives at your 3rd and use your initial scouting ling to check his base. you would have seen forge wasnt upgrading so fast +1 wasnt an issue and the warpgate wasnt building so no more pressure inc.
- Your problem isnt overreacting with lings. you didnt build units the entire time. if u just a-moved the lings and lost most 1 at a time to the zealot while macroing. it would have cost less then not spending your larvae that whole time.
- Your droning is slow
- you keep building units while drone count is tiny. Effectively by the 8:30 mark your innefficient macro has led to the fast 3rd doing more harm then good.
- spines suck. also they are way too early
- you dont have ovies in position to sacrifice into main OR more importantly to check the gas at the natural. If you see these gases taken by 7:15-7:30 then he cant hit you very hard very fast.
- you were very slow moving units to your 3rd. you didnt spread any creep or move spines and so the spines are wasted investment
-once you lose your 3rd you should die unless you CRUSH your opponents forces and they escape with nothing.

I won't analyse further then that as the game is effectively lost at this point.

Quick Comments

	mGGDaedalus:
	Nemo:	Great