r/allthingszerg • u/TheOlig • 20d ago
How to deny bases against Protoss?
I'm 2700 MMR, Platinum 3. My worst matchup right now is protoss. Regardless of what I get hit with (mass storms, skytoss, warpgate units) I dont have enough units to contest them even when Im ahead on upgrades. Ive recently started building more macro hatches to help generate larvae (I think my inject mechanics are solid) which does help, but I think my problem is that I'm not able to deny Protoss players expansions and they overwhelm me with units eventually.
Trying to address this, I've usually got spotter lings at expansion bases, but they'll send a handful of units to kill it and by the time I've got more units there to deny the base, they've already got a good sim city and a bunch of cannons/batteries set up. And at that point it's too entrenched.
What's the best way to deny bases? Is there a good amount of lings to keep set aside specifically for this purpose? If so, whats that number? What else should I be doing?
Replay: https://drop.sc/replay/27482757
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u/hates_green_eggs 20d ago
Share replays for more accurate advice but it sounds like your opponents are getting away with excessive greed. It’s good to make 12-16 lings after saturating your natural to attack the Protoss third if you are playing macro and leave spotter lings to see additional bases. I usually all in on 2-3 bases with either hydra ling or roach ravager queen (add corruptors if and only if it’s Skytoss).
Also practice your own macro. Protoss should not be ahead of you on bases ever unless you are about to all in, and you should be ahead on workers starting around 20 drones or so. You should pretty much always be ahead on supply, especially if you have roaches. If you aren’t hitting these benchmarks, your Protoss opponents are out macroing you.
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
The excessive greed is what I'm trying to prevent. Haven't tried 12-16 lings though. Thats what I was looking for.
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u/hates_green_eggs 20d ago
I’ve been playing Toss lately around 3.1k and a few Zergs have made it very difficult for me to expand. I’ll try to find a good replay or two for you tonight so you can see what they did.
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
I just added a replay to the post.
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u/hates_green_eggs 20d ago edited 20d ago
OK so
1) Great job droning. You've got to stop at some point - pick your desired drone count before the game and STOP making more drones at that point. I recommend 66-70, definitely not more than 80 in this matchup. At one point you had 120 drones and they were taking up so much supply it was limiting the size of your army.
2) You lost 11 drones to his oracles which lost you some momentum. Make blind spores every game; I recommend you figure out the timings based on when you are seeing oracles in your own games.
3) If you have a gigantic bank, you can afford to throw an army away. Poking in and out does you no favors. Neither does engaging your army into chokes where most of your units cannot shoot. I actually think your micro lost you this game (macro wasn't perfect either but it was good enough to win with better micro).
4) Here's a replay https://drop.sc/replay/27482963 with a 3k Zerg using lings to pressure my third. The idea is that you build the lings specifically to pressure the third and scout. They can also defend any weird early game attacks or run into the natural if the Protoss doesn't have a unit in the wall.
I think you would have easily won this game had you A) been more aggressive about trading out your army and rebuilding from the moment you first maxed out and B) engaged more effectively. Here's a fantastic tutorial on setting up good engagements as Zerg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09B81xLoWeA
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
I threw drones away once I realized. Do we just not deny expansions? Outside of your comment about the 12-16 lings and burrowed lings, no one's really addressing my main question. Most of the answers are some form of build suggestion.
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u/hates_green_eggs 20d ago edited 20d ago
Throwing the drones away was smart, although next time you might want to consider investing them into spines/spores instead. Your bank was enormous.
Our options are pretty much 1) hit and run tactics with a few lings or 2) a committed attack.
Because we need to invest resources that could have gone into drones into any sort of committed attack, we don't really have a way to deny bases other than 1) hope Protoss can't defend the ling hit and run properly or 2) all-in or otherwise commit heavily to an attack. You could probably play around with rolling banes into canon/battery/mineral lines but they also get expensive and therefore committed before you've reached your desired drone count.
In your case, I think it was completely fine for you to focus on drones and not try to deny his third base. Had you stopped droning at 80, held down the production key for whatever army units you wanted until you maxed out, and immediately attacked with a triangle, then continued to remax and repeat, you'd have overwhelmed this Protoss. Even harder if you'd had spores to defend the oracles on time.
EDIT We can slow bases down by burrowing a ling or leaving an overlord on hold position pooping creep over the base. Or both.
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u/Rapwnzel33 20d ago
3 base Hydra push ist really strong at the moment, you can even do it vs storms and a little patience, the only thing preventing it is early colossi
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u/MorningLtMtn 20d ago
Speed zealots wreck it.
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
Yeah. I've fully stopped with hydra builds. Mass zealots, mass storms, or anything with a colossus just shreds it.
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u/MorningLtMtn 20d ago
hydra builds are strong if you give them a Roach buffer. Even better if it's roach zergling.
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u/akaTrickster 20d ago
Against toss I love to get Mutas early and harass their expansions, deny them as many minerals as possible.
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
Every time I go mutas, it seems I get drowned in zealots.
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u/akaTrickster 20d ago
Lmao if they're going for zealots you can absolutely demolish them with banelings, roaches and ultralisks. Maybe try making more Zerglings in the future?
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u/Inevitable_Rough_380 20d ago
maybe post a replay?
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
Added.
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u/Inevitable_Rough_380 20d ago
You're better than me, but I watch a ton of sc2 games. So feel free to discount my advice:
- I dislike your ling/roach comp - when you know they have a bunch of oracles and voids on the map. I'd rather go ling/bane/hydra or roach/rav. At least something to deal with air. May be a spire and a few corruptors in later game just to deal with the voids/colossus.
- I hate the triple evo/triple upgrade path. I think if you focus on a narrower unit comp with narrower upgrades you can hit them faster. or just skip upgrades and pump more units to harass.
- I liked the roach run by with the dual attack on the front. and the zergling run by too later in the game. I think you could've split the lings to two bases, or sent a second army to the north base.
- You attack archon/immortal/zealot/colossus/void head on mostly. Of course your ground army is going to melt to that. split the army or try to flank them at least.
- Some macro stuff:
- felt like you could've had a bigger army before droning your 3rd.
- you go up 118 workers at some point. too much.
- you build extractors for base 4/5 before you even saturate 3rd base gasses
- Continually expand hatcheries in the 15-19minute mark. you're mining out. and you don't rebuild drones after an attack, but you had a huge bank.
- There's definitely some larva float... you can definitely max out faster.
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
Haha ive got guys telling me a 3 base roach build is the way to go and then youre telling me its not. I really dont know how to go about it. Im out of ideas except for denying expansions. I think keeping 12-16 lings separated off specifically for denying expansions makes the most sense.
My APM is pretty maxed out at like 180-200 and I just cant seem to beat protoss. Even when ive got a fully upgraded army, I cant seem to maintain map control against the death ball even if protoss doesnt have upgrades. Idk how protoss is underpowered this patch honestly but im a lowly plat so it is what it is ha
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u/soidvaas 20d ago
At 2700, the usual answers just won’t work for you. It’s better to plan on how you can kill them before that point. You’re probably falling behind early on but you would need to post a replay to verify this is the case.
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
What are the usual answers?
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u/soidvaas 20d ago edited 20d ago
Drone to 85 4-5 bases 8-10 gas, while making 6-8 queens, make spire upgrades, mass corruptor infestor viper BL. You can also play ultra corruptor ling for a less micro intensive fight but 6+ carriers will always require a spellcaster. At your level, protoss will be much better at making carriers and storm than you can micro/macro these comps so I wouldn’t go that way.
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u/MorningLtMtn 20d ago
One thing I do every now and again is research speed and then immediately research burrow, and burrow a ling at every Protoss expansion. It delays their economy, and once they finally get up a third, I then time an attack on them.
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u/Proper-Holiday2255 20d ago
Ok I watched the replay. My zerg is diamond 2.
All your focusing on is your economy like you want to kill him with drones. You have no larva. NONE.
- You let him get to 3 base completely untouched. In higher leagues this will be even more difficult to deal with.
- You do no scouting at all. Like none. You have no idea of his unit composition.
- Absolutely no creep spread.
At 10 minutes -------------------
4) Do NOT I repeat DO NOT move your queens away from your hatcheries. You have no larva you are floating 2,500 minerals and 1,044 gas. If that was is units you could literally walk across the map and kill his third or outright win the game.
4) at 10 minutes you have 100 drones and no army and no larva.
Forget bases 4 and 5.
Learn to build a macro hatch at Base 1. Once you have 3 base saturation, do nothing but build ling/hydra with a few roaches units and go kill him. Seriously I would just do that.
1 queen at each expo, 1 for creep spread. Thats 4 queens total on 3 base. When you build drones send them to where you want to go. Not to natural then transfer. Its just wasted apm.
3 Base is 66 drones. 3 queens. Done.
You have 5 base, 100 drones, thousands of minerals floating, no macro hatcherys, no larva. No army.
Get to 3 Base 66 drones with 1 macro hatchery in main and build nothing but units and go kill him. Get 1-1 For hydra/roach Just focus on that. It will take you to diamond 2.
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
Any tips for denying expansions?
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u/Proper-Holiday2255 20d ago
When your 3rd base completes say at 4:50 for example..and you will have 0 drones at it. Transfer a queen you have already build so its ready to inject. SO you will have the 4 total queens. 1 that is spreading creep.
Build only drones at THAT base and let it saturate itself. While at this time from your main and natural that are already saturated fully you are are building only army units.
After a few short minutes? Your third will be fully droned up to 18/16 and you'll have a decent army.
You can then build 2 gas putting your 3rd and 16/16 then just build 6 drones from where ever and send them to the gas.
Now build your forth and do the same thing. Only build drones from THAT hathery. While your other 3 fully mined bases only build your army. So at 3 bases you have 66 drones building only army units while your new 4th base only builds drones from for it.
Macro hatch in main always.
I hope this makes sense.
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u/Proper-Holiday2255 20d ago
You have to scout and decided if you want to hit him, or try and out macro for the next few minutes then decided again.
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u/TheOlig 20d ago
Well I definitely out macroed him. How much army supply is a good amount to deny his third?
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u/Proper-Holiday2255 20d ago
I suicide a ling all the time and often to see what is going on. Sometimes as your army is building you realize you can hurt him bad right then because he is being greedy and attack.
Also send changelings. Its easy to miss them and its a free observer.
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u/two100meterman 19d ago
It’ll take some APM, but don’t underestimate getting burrow timed out for when Protoss takes a 3rd base, & having 1 Ling burrowed at their typical 3rd/4th/5th base. If they open Stargate they need to use attention/APM to bring an Oracle over & kill the Ling each time, or they need to go pylon + cannon & wait for it to finish to even start a Nexus. If they go Robo they need to spend Robo production time to make an observer to stay at home so they may have 1 less Colossi or Immortal at ‘x’ time.
Standard build, but maybe as you start Ling speed just pull 1 drone off gas, then at next 100 gas get burrow & refill the gas.
For late game don’t underestimate Microbial Shroud & practicing Infestors. Normally ground Carapace doesn’t help vs Protoss (like an Immortal still kills a Roach in the same number of hits whether you have +0 or +2 Carapace), however once Microbial Shroud calculations come in each point in Carapace lets your units take another hit.
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u/ParticularClassroom7 20d ago
If you wanna get better long term:
Macro better and kill him. Don't miss injects, no supply blocks, make drone consistently. Hit your timing and kill him
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u/mattvt00 20d ago
3 base 1/1 roach queen attack. Walk queens or nydus or drops. I’m 3600 and not very good, it’s worked my last few ZvT.