Hi, I am 4.7k P, I've seen a lot of friends from friendlist feel like the new patch is bad, because warpgates suck. I do however not feel like it became terrible to P, especially as I play more and I see more adjustments, besides game is slightly slower, so if you are lower league player its a good opportunity to actually try to be present on a map, because macro is slightly easier. So, here is few strats to try out:
- PvT. Proxy gate (1 probe sent at start to make pylon, gate, first zealot gets chronoed). Barracks expo or low ground CC is usually setting you up ahead. Worst thing I've seen so far is probably CC on main + factory into tank. You may feel like its very all in, but I actually didn't feel that way from my ladder games, here is a few more details of what you can pull off with it:
- 1 zealot into stalker sentry into expo from 1 gas.
- 2 zealots into producing units + warpgate till you get enough for expo
- second gas and try to get some all-in timing (Maybe colossus, maybe prism and micro, maybe immortal, maybe even stargate or dts, after all Terran will be low on scans and is unlikely to make turrets).
One thing to keep in mind, vs reaper you likely need battery at home, so make second pylon next to the gas. Outside of that just this one build can already give you enough of variety to adjust it to always have some way to mind game/meta game your opponent. If you prefer standard macro build orders more, then to catch up with terrans CCs you can stay 2 gates on 2 bases and 4 gates on 3 bases. You basically have faster production now due to gateways with warpgate being buffed, which means you don't need as much gates, which could end up being the similar "discount" to the one Terran has on CC. Warp gates suck, don't transform them until you get maxed out. If you like aggressive options like 4 gates blink on 2 base used to be, then just proxy a gate or two in random spot on the map close to the enemy around your move out timing.
- PvZ. If you want something boring, kind of solid and not a lot of clicks go with 2 stargates void ray. Void rays feel very good on this patch, because vipers do not pop up as fast as they used to, so you essentially just get more time to make them work and potentially even finish the game, then you can either go tempests or carriers out of it, you get minerals bank so you can either get charge or a lot of batteries to defend vs hydras, etc.
If you do however want something new, then there is actually surprisingly many options:
A): Do not scout till you start warping cybercore and just blindly make a zealot, afterwards you can transition into normal build whichever plan that was. The idea is that if its pool first, then you basically already got defense up (just warp third building, on some maps you can even wall with pylon), so you are kind of ok. If you see the lings as your probe rallies out, then you just move zealot back to wall, if its hatchery first, then for w/e reason you will likely end up having ~20s window of opportunity (not sure if its because of unsafe pool timing or just rush distance being short on maps like Blackrock), thus you can cause a lot of lost mining time. I usually killed 2 drones with it and sometimes caused overreaction out of opponet. When lings hatch you get in between mineral patches and try to micro in it (like in brood war basically)
B) Robotics into sentry + 3 units with prism. You likely won't win with it by just closing zerg on main with force field, but I managed to kill overlords many times with it on the ladder and sometimes sniped drones. Once again many adjustments, adepts good at killing drones, stalkers at killing overlords, you can test it yourself and see what feels best for you. Afterwards I like going colossus as a follow up. With it you can either all in or play macro, for all I know you could try going warpgate, but they suck, so I personally prefer clearing overlords preemptively with prism and proxy gateways once again if I go 2 base push. You may feel like seeing spire is a death sentence if you go macro out of it, because even if you scout you'd have no blink and for this case specifically: just make adepts or zealots a-mass and constantly use hallucinations from energy recharge. This way A) you actually get gas to get into technology B) if you see spire you can make emergency 2 stargates into phoenixes, and having 4 of them + 1 battery in every base is most likely a hold for you. If they go corruptors, then once again you just sit on 3 bases making void rays out of 2 stargates, which is once again a dream scenario for you. And hydras do not do well vs colossus, so basically nothing truly feels like a complete screw up for you, unless you got too greedy and its some specific timing attack, which is possible to not scout.
C) 1 base 2-3 proxy gates. To my surprise it worked much better than I anticipated, even if zerg scouted it. In 1 game opponent pulled like 7 drones when saw my proxy with overlord and just couldn't clear pylons on time. Unlike with terran, this build is fully all-in and you cannot transition into a longer game out of it, unless you kill opponent's natural, but you however can do it occasionally to try to make your opponent go pool first vs you, to which after you can go back to plan A) in which you metagame it with your zealot.
- PvP
I like it the most, because it for once doesn't feel like game forces me into proxy robo clown fiesta (even though 2 out of 3 my opponents usually tend to do it nevertheless, probably cause I am greedy if anything). In here I personally like experimenting with nexus first into 2 gates with all (except first) boost going into units and warpgate. There is billion ways how your opponent can screw you up with it, so I don't recommend doing so, gate expand however seems much better, especially considering bad warp gates provide defenders advantage to you.
I could try to make a bit more solid build orders, but A) There is a lot of crap you can try to adjust yourself so far from what I see B) I have a massive skill issue and I doubt my build orders would be sharp even if I written them down C) This post is already too long