I'm tired of T/P doing Tech-Rushes

Its every game. Harass with hellions or oracles; units that are probably way too strong for how much they cost and how early you get them (not to mention you can destroy an entire mineral line with very few; all while safely walled off behind cannons or siege tanks, and then just tech for Tier 3 Battlecruiser or mass carriers.

Seriously hellions are pumping out before I get speedlings and thats following the 17 hatch/gas/pool BO nearly frame perfect.

Am I missing something here on how to stop these annoying harasses?

Should I just default back to blocking my ramp with Evo/spine and 2 spine before mineral line?

Maybe just go back to 7rr?

I feel like the niche` for zerg to win just isn’t fair anymore compared to the other races who can harass and deal so much damage with only 2-4 units an entire early game.

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I understand the complaint about bcs but you’ve gotta be really stupid to lose to a protoss that opens oracle and only goes straight into mass carriers

At the risk of sounding like a troll, I gotta say, it sounds like you forgot how to make Queens. And just because he’s making hellions before speed is done, doesn’t mean it won’t be done before they arrive. If speed isn’t done by 4:10, you’re probably not executing the build on point.

No, I’m following the build frame perfect; they’re probably rushing hellions faster to purposely punish the 17 Hatch/gas/pool eco opening.

How so? Oracles MELT drones and there isn’t much you can really do about them that early especially if they mass a lot of them; queens don’t kill them fast enough and they melt hydras as well.

Also nothing in zergs army can deal with a carrier death ball; you just simply cant beat it if they build/harass right.

Probably? You don’t know?

I just started playing again so all the timings are vastly different than what I remembered back in WoL. Thats why I said “Probably” but I know for certain my execution is almost frame perfect.

  1. In a macro non-proxy state, the fastest an oracle can arrive to your base is something after 3:30. To do this, you get a free scout with your overlord too, because the protoss makes an adept first, cuts warpgate for a bit, allowing your overlord to freely enter the protoss base, get a scout, and hide in the pervert pillar. Literally all you have to do is spread overlords around, get creep spread to your third base, 3 spores at the most with 1 at each base, and the oracle can pick up 2 drones at most, 0 if your queens are in position. 2 queens scare an oracle, 2 queens and a spore is suicide for an oracle. You have plenty of time to prepare for this.
  2. Proxy is a possibility. It’s high risk high reward anyway, and you can actually counter with a ling flood, take down the proxy, and then do a ling/rav or ling/bane bust to counter.
  3. If they go into straight carriers after opening oracle, they’re on 3 bases MAX. It’s such a heavy tech investment. They can’t get twilight or robo tech to back up their carriers. You have 2 choices from here: roachrav push or drone and tech straight to corruptors for a direct counter. Even hydralisks can make it work, all you have to do is kill the interceptors and with a proper timing, the carriers are useless. If you let them get away with 4 bases that’s on you.
  4. Are you referring to mass oracle? Because 1 oracle barely beats 1 queen, and 2 oracles lose to 2 queens because of transfuse. Hydras melt oracles. If you lose to mass oracle with hydras, you were already behind to begin with.
  5. What beats a carrier death ball? Well, by the sound of it, looks like you already lost the game before the protoss got to the carrier death ball, it’s just that they chose that strategy to beat you. You have corruptors, hydralisks, vipers, infestors, counter harass.
  6. Mass oracle is a joke. You don’t see players do it D1+ unless they’re cheesing you with cannon rush. Queens have amazing AA. Use it.

WOL? Well that explains a lot. It’ll probably take some time to adapt to the lotv meta. In the mean time, the ‘probably’ part was because it sounded like you didn’t watch the replays and didn’t know for sure what your opponent actually did. It’s a common thing around here.

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I’m in the same boat, and you should listen to maniac here. I hadn’t really played since HotS, and since he caught me up on the LotV meta, I didn’t understand just how many queens I really needed. I get 6-8 queens between 3 hatches in the early game and im practically immune to most early game harass. Queens are kinda OP base defense for their cost and how early you get them. With proper creep spread and then banking their energy, they’re almost invincible with transfuse against an oracle/void ray/banshee/ even battlecruiser rush

check the thread I made, Maniac provided a VERY thorough write up for how to catch up to the LotV meta

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If you are truly perfect at economic builds, you shouldn’t have many issues losing to all-in types of rushes or cheese. Economic is the best, safest way to win games. People don’t do them because they take more time / don’t have it mastered.

Post a reply and we can better help you maybe? Also, your profile is private. What MMR is this? In general, people in certain MMR brackets need to focus on certain things to move up, so it’s important to know.

Also, for oracles or banshee rushing, If I don’t know 100% what they’re about to be doing at 3:00, I’m throwing up blind spores on each base.

Third base could benefit from 2 sunkens right between gas and minerals to wall off if you truly struggle. Think of it this way. Be behind 2 drones and a little minerals or lose the game / all your drones? Easy choice.

The last thing… most people get one queen per base. So when they have 3 bases, they only have 3 queens. This is a huge problem. Don’t do that. Make queens. They’re one of the most cost effective units you can make. They can also heal buildings!

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Yea I was trying to defend it with Sling/bane/roach like we did in WoL.

What did they do to queens to make them to GoTo for zerg or has it always been the same as we just never realized it till way later?

I think it was just AA got buffed range, but more that zergs discovered a more streamlined build for Zerg includes mostly drone production as early and fast as possible. Queens don’t take larva and are very tanky with healing, so there’s no particular weakness in the early game aside from mobility and dos. Eventually armies get large enough to overwhelm them easily, but by then the eco is strong enough to sustain and field an actual army. Queens really just lack dps to handle some attacks, such as bc harass, where several are required. Admittedly I didn’t play in hots, so I don’t know any other reasons it is different

Yea back then proxy raxx was much more common with marine bunkers trying to keep you contained into your base, as well as the 3 pylon at the bottom of your ramp by protoss.

I hardly see any proxy shenanigans anymore, and when I do, even a hatch first build with enough queens roflstomps as far as I know, I’m just plat for now

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It gets more difficult as you progress, but a hatch first can still hold 2rax. Any more and you better have a pool first or hope they delay long enough for the hatch AND pool to finish. It is way less common than a year ago since Maru hasn’t been winning every gsl off proxies.

Proxy was very good when the worker count started at 6 instead of 12.

  1. Your first overlord can scout the fast factory (reactor right after reaper means you can scout the main fully and no reactor means you scout the factory fast and then get the hell back to your “pervert pillar”).

  2. Vs. fast factory, I would always rush 7 queens and a roach warren at about 3:30 or 4:00 (I’m thinking about hellbat allin here with either banshee or marauders or marines). So if terran tries to deny your scout / kill your overlord asap, I’d rush lair after ling/speed every time because it will give you…
    a) detection vs. banshees
    b) changelings (overseers are also faster than overlords)
    c) option to fast baneling speed vs. mass hellion/hellbat/marine push
    d) option to fast roach speed vs. hellion/cyclone and a few infestors later to shut that strategy down
    e) If it’s weird and you don’t really know what it will be, just get 12 queens and a roach warren - it’s probably BC rush

  3. vs. a high-tech push, lurker/viper + queens/hydras/static defense (i.e. spores vs. libs; depends on how much gas / gas income you have since lurkers and vipers is the most important part because you don’t want to have thors rofl-stomping your 3 lurkers so rather get 2-3 per thor you see up to 15-20 lurkers).

  4. vs. ghosts, you’ll want a decent amount of creep queens (like 4) and pairs of spore/spine here and there. You do NOT want ravagers or ultras vs. ghosts! (snipe, snipe, gas investment gone)

note: abduct (viper) cancels yamato cannon and nuke)

Dude, 7 Queens defend and one Spore in each mineral line defend any gimmick P or T throw at you.

Spores doesn’t even need Evo Chamber, Zerg is babysit even on that.

7 queens against a 2-4 hellion run? Are you delusional? Or did you not read the OP? The man is a WoL player struggling against the new meta.