[SLCNPezz]

you need to chronoboost a sentry and forcefield your ramp.

Quick Comments

VB_heathen:

this guy^

[ToRSpookToR]

Originally Posted by ToRPezz

you need to chronoboost a sentry and forcefield your ramp.

better advice then night terra

Quick Comments

mGGAequitas:

LOL

[ToRPeek]

This was from my guie i wrote a while back, some of the metagame stuff is flat out wrong and outdated, but the scouting still applies, hope it helps

edited to remove irrelevant stuff

Pretty much always scout with your rax scv in TvZ. Send it straight to the zergs base (on most maps)

What to look for with your first scv scout
Hatchery
Gas
If there is no hatchery, just make cc in main, and a safety bunker, (it's just a bad build, unless you proxied or did something greedy ala symbol one base roach). Plus it rarely happens. Thus what's more important is the gas. Some quick timings, a fully saturated vespene geyser mines basically 100 gas a minute, and speed takes 110 seconds.

Now firstly, what do we do if there's no gas at all. I have a mantra in TvZ "No gas No gayness", basically if zerg takes no gas, you can feel alot safer when you're on the map. Now the only thing you're vulnerable to, is a pressure poke with 8 lings. Which is why, after scouting the gas, you immediately send the scv to the closest zelnaga tower. Zergs really can't afford to delay their attacking timing, they almost always have to show the lings. If they take the logn way, they might risk you having enough marines. Even if they somehow sneak by, and you're caught with your pants down with 3 marnies vs 8 lings, with some quick micro you can still survive. Simply place a bunker next to your cc with a line of 3 sqaures in between, and put your marines in there. And the lings won't get enough surface area, and you're safe. Also note that if they send 2 lings ahead to clear teh xelnaga tower, you're already delaying their timing, because they have to hit with 8 lings at once, other wise you can just pick off the frontal 2 lings with good micro, and fall back to a choke, and you've defended it just fine. That's pretty much the first scout, Remember : "No gas, no gayness".

Now what to do if the zerg has gas, there are two variants, gas pool, and pool gas. When you scout gas pool, you will see that the gas is already mining and when the pool pops they will have 100 gas. The good thing about this style, is that they will almost never all in with it, because they can't risk showing the fact that they've mined more than 100 gas, if they do, it's an obvious tell that they're doing something cheesy, and just make two bunkers, stagger them apart, and you'll be safe.
Assuming they mine more than 100 gas, and no speed being research, it's roach, bunker and repair for the win. (this is also rare, because they mine the gas too early for roach warren timings to work properly)

More than 100 gas with speed, baneling bust, double bunker and win.

If they mine only 100 gas, it can either be a ling timing attack, OR they're simply getting speed to "be safe".

Now assuming you scouted their gas and they pulled off 100 gas. Take a note of when they mine exactly 100 gas (should be the same time that the pool finishes), and remember that 110 seconds from now, their speed will kick in. What this means for you, and your three marines is that, you should move to take your own xelnaga only, and kill any lings that try to come and take it.

When zerg mines gas, you can basically rule out 8 ling openings. So you keep your scv at their xelnaga as normal.

KEEP YOUR MOTHER ******* SCV ALIVE, ITS ******* IMPORTANT, RAX -> ZERGS BASE -> TO ZELNAGA.

Now regardless of whether they mine gas or not, they have two main options, make no lings or a few (2-4). If they make no lings at all, you just keep your scv at their zelnaga. However, if they come to the xelnaga with lings, pull your scv back to your own xelnaga, while starting to secure it with your three marines. What almost always happens is that they try to send 1 ling to your xelnaga, you should always always pick it off. Stutter towards it, with two volleys you can snipe 1 ling. Now depending on how much time you have left, you should either go to their xelnaga, and try to clear it out, or fall back to your own base (with a bunker). Now regardless of what happens, the scv that you saved (CAUSE ITS ******* IMPORTANT), will now go the "long" way, to the zergs third, and will rescout it later on).

Vs gasless and no 8 lings, you have a long ass amount of time you can be out on the map, now the question here is, whether or not you want to be. But you can be sure that they wont have speed by the time of your rescout (will explain more later). But now you have to make a concious decision whether or not to pull back to your base. Not for defensive purposes, but for warding off overlords. With some builds, you won't resume marine production for quite a while, or not at all. What this means is that your main is now opened to being scouted. And you would have no way to kill the ovie. (this of course depends on the build, and how heavy being scouted affects you).

I think almost always you should pull it back to "defend" your main so to speak, unless you're doing some kind of rax heavy play, because if they only scout two gas, it could be a plethora of builds, whether it be 1 1 1 follow up or doulbe fact, or super greedy doulbe ebay with third cc. This keeps them guessing, which is more importantfor you, than the xelnaga is. Plus if you've cleared out the xelnaga, it's very odd for the zerg to make a few lings and "hope" you've left it. This means they wont try to clear it unless its near creep and they opened six queen, or they have some form of tech.

Now, with gas after pool, it's pretty much identical, except you can't besure, if they mine more than 100. It doesn't matter, but this time you instead take note of when the EXTRACTOR finishes. and add 3 minutes to the current game clock. That is when their speed "should" finish. this is the amount of time that you're "allowed" on the map so to speak.

Hellions use to be the go to for map control, because zergs would almost always open with speed. but now since they have queens to defend, they have delayed their speed for a longer amount of time, which means you actually have a timing where marines can give you map control.

So with the amount of "time" you're allowed on the map, your goals are to:
Clear xelnaga
TRY to kill everysingle ling (if you accomplish this, zerg is completely in the dark, its not a nice feeling for the zerg player)
Pick off some of those gay ferrari lords.
BUT ALWAYS, pull back before speed "should" finish (and also in time to ward off ovies, if you're doing some form of fast gas build".

*If you pick off all their lings, either 2 or 4 (you should know due to the scv seeing the lings at the xelnaga before running away) feel free to back up to your main right away, as you've accomplished what you wanted, zerg will never make another pair of lings, because it's just a silly risk to take.

Now with the scv, that you've sent the long way to their third and hidden somehwere close by (if you some how lost it, use a marine instead), at around 620, you'll send it to their third, and through to their natural, you're looking to do two things.
Check for a third
Count queens
A third at this timing will mean they are definitely NOT all inning you. As well as 2+ queens spreading creep.

2 creeping queens means some sort of two base tech, could just be speed and ups before third, or some form of fast muta play, but overall nothing dangerous.

Four queens means theyre being gay, (SHOULD have a third at that moment) if not one almost immediately, and you can assume theyre going for some form of three base play, and won't bother taking map control until rougly 930 to 10 minutes, when their tech FINALLY starts to kick in.

But they key thing here, is for you to know if they're gonna all in you, which should be apparently if they only have 1 queen spread creep (the creep is barely out of the natural) and because of hte low number of queens, you should be able to peek at their natural gas, if you scout nat gas, very likely to be roach bane all in.

If it's an all in, make 3 staggered bunkers or maybe even four. If they're not continue with your build normally.

Final note, if you want to be sure of what the zerg is doing, scan their natural just so that you barely see the whole of their nat (including back of minerals) while the rest of your scan is where they "should" be spreading creep, if you see no creep at all, and maybe a gas at the natural, you can assume roach bane, small numbers of creep and gas can also hint roach bane. But if you get the queen count with this scan even better. Also look for a lack of evo chambers or not, which is again indicative of where they're spending their gas. This is also good because right now most zergs put their tech at their nat, this scan potentially accounts for that, but the key thing to look for, double evo, queen count, and creep tumours.
Note: Double evo and four queens, pretty much guarantees you're not getting all inned.

Quick Comments

Demosthenes:

I like how you cover most (if not all) the possibilities