ZvZ - Gold 1 - first game back in awhile. He ling-rushed and I want to figure out how I should have known.
Watching the replay I noticed that I caught a few lings running past with my OL but I missed them during the game. I saw his natural but didn’t look very far in.
What would have been my best clue to know he was rushing? Thanks in advance.
(sorry no links yet)
sc2replaystats . com / replay/10797781
Hello there.
Just make 2 lings and send them to scout your opponent’s natural and main. It will give you all information you need to know. ![:slight_smile:](https://d212vo0owly06i.cloudfront.net/en/sc2/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
And don’t build roach warren so quicly, you don’t have money for roaches anyway.
Send first overlord to natural and into main:
Does he have a hatchery at his natural when you do? If he does, is the HP way lower than yours while it’s building? If it’s significantly lower, he made a pool first and is going to rush you.
When you’re in his main… if he doesn’t have 16 workers, he’s going to rush you. Look at the HP of the spawning pool compared to yours (assuming you build it at a Normal time) if his is almost done and yours is half way, he probably build it fast and is rushing.
Keep an overlord at each exit of the base. Ya can at least see the lings coming and it’ll be out of queen range. When you see a flood coming, and you’re doing a Norma macro build, make a spine in each base and start pumping zerglings or work on a few banes. If you have overlords outside of each exit, you’ll have enough time to build counter units without messing up your economy by going all in. You’ll also have a better lead on economy so you’ll end up winning assuming you survive the initial rush.
Looking at this, he had 18 workers. Meaning he didn’t saturate his natural at all. Keeping an overlord in a blind spot over the natural area should have been able to show you this part. He did it a lot less obvious than most would. In this scenario, since it wasn’t too crazy of a rush, positioning your overlords at the exit and noticing the lings coming should have given you enough time to make lings to counter his attack. Scout with the two lings will also show you the fact that he’s not saturating his natural. If he’s not and you are, only saturate with 6 drones, this will give you a huge economy lead and you’ll pump lings better than him. Or banes or tech. He just won’t have the economy to keep up. Looks like ya just made too many drones.
So yea in this exact game… scouting with first two lings woulda shown you he is not saturating his natural at all.
Thank you both for the replies!
Chillin - question on the nat -> main OL scouting. Is the idea with this that you will almost always lose the OL? Should I just queue one up before pushing the OL in? I always hesitate here because a) I struggle with what to do with the scouting info sometimes and b) I always lose the OL and I guess I’m not planning accordingly before hand.
Thanks again for the response!
Just shift queue the overlord movement and forget about them for the most part. I shift click where they’re going, and hardly move them. I’ll hotkey the first one to group 2 and second to group 3 for the first part of the game so when I notice they’re in vision of my opponents base, I double tap 2 or 3 to see what’s going on and swap back to my base w/o moving the overlord. You wanna make sure your first 3-5 mins is perfect. So anything you can do to make it easier (like shift queuing overlords) helps!
Don’t lose the overlord! At least try not to early on. The first one (Zerg opponent) can make it to see the pool before queen pops usually. I typically shift queue into the base and out to the ramp that units will exit that isn’t part of the natural. The second one, I place high ground on a tower or something outside the natural. Every one versus one map has a place to put an overlord where opponent can’t see it.
Zerg can only see if they put an overlord by you. Protoss have to wait until they have an observer usually, which is like 4 mins. By then, idc if it dies. If it’s still alive when I get a lair; I change it to overseer and scout bar again at 5 min mark to see what’s up. It’s worth losing at that point.
Protoss and Terran, my first overlord goes to their ramp. Moves to high tower on natural after I see a marine in production or unit after cyber core is done. That’s all you need. From this, you’ll see a few things. If you see 4 gates, they’re going to rush you. No one makes 4 gates for fun. If you see two barracks, they’re gonna hit at 5 minutes probably. Second overlord against toss or Terran always goes in your own natural to not get cannon or bunker rushed. It’s more about knowing the timing of opponents attacks than scouting all day. If you see fast expands, you’re in good shape to continue to macro up until 4 mins, at which point you need some D. So that fiRst scout is plenty until you get a lair. After you have a lair, scout with the overseer. Are they going air? (2 star ports or more? Do you see a fusion core? Do you see a spire?) do they have two engineering bays? Click a marine or zealot. Does it have attack upgrades? No one is going to upgrade attack and armor on ground units, and then make a bunch of air units, you know? I can’t stress how important it is to look at upgrades. Those two scouts alone will almost always tell you enough on what you need to do to win up through masters.
Kind of put yourself in their shoes. Everyone has a general plan before the game begins. Okay I’m gonna go maurader medivac and marine. I’m gonna upgrade ground attack and armor to 1:1 and attack at 5 minutes. You know? No one is like okay I’m gonna get 1/1 ground units and then 2/1 and then I’m gonna make a lot of liberators and not upgrade those at all. You don’t spend upgrades on stuff you’re not planning on making (:
If you don’t know what I mean still, I can 1v1 ya and show you exactly what I mean. Add me. ChillinSpree#1165 (there is no G) id be happy to play around with ya or even do some 2s!
what did you miss? 12 pool is so good its a macro build