Hey friends of the SC2 Arcade!

A skilled goal keeper has more than anyone else the power to carry a game in Zealot Hockey. It takes discipline and patience to be solid, but as soon as you are, you will be frustrating for your opponents like nothing else!

Many Players seem to have troubles defending the net. There is no reason for that – just keep a couple of guidelines in mind:

Know and use your tools!

Use right click to move, hold left click to charge shots/passes when you are in possession of the puck. If you are not, left click works as steal within a certain radius around the puck. Apart from that you have following special abilities.

Check: Gives you a speed boost, steals the puck automatically if you go through it. Your initial movement influences the boost, do not waste them while you stand still or while you are turning, you have the most speed boost when you charge in the exact direction you are already skating. After use you have to wait 12 seconds to be able to use again.

Force field: Barrier to block off stuff. Note: includes a hold command , you will not be able to move for any moment except check (you can still boost towards your navpoint). Usually used to block off shots on goal, occasionally beneficial to block off other player, for example blocking a charging enemy to prevent him attacking your teammate who has the puck or is grabbing it. Also 12 seconds cooldown.

Stop: Underused in lower level of play. Helps a lot when you want to shoot or confuse your opponent. Also it is easier for teammates to pass to you when you are not moving. No cooldown.

It is essential to be comfortable with hotkeys. They may be simple but they are very powerful in the right hands. It takes a lot of skill to time those correctly. You can practise them with a friend and alone, just create a private game and try out it out. It is amazing what you can do with perfect timed boosts and the other abilities.

I highly recommend you to have a setup where you do not need to move your left hand a lot. Also, you want to be able to hit all keys at once if you need them. Examples: W E R, S D F, S E R … what ever works best for you. You can change your hotkeys in the menu into a setup you are comfortable with. Note: This only works when you access the menu while you are in a hockey game! Easiest way is to create a private game, start it alone, press F10 -> options -> hotkeys.

Select the Immortal (works for Zealot too) under ‘Protoss units’ and change what you like to change.

The standard layout works fine with an EN keyboard (QWERTY). German devices for example are QWERTZ. Z and Y are switched, forcing you to use your weak pinky. I would change that asap. Once you are used to your setup, changing keys is very annoying.

After you figured out the mechanical aspects, let’s go to the theory…

The grey area is your home! STAY THERE!

You are the only player on the field who can move there, use it to your advantage!

Ever noticed that afk keepers catch shots surprisingly often? Guess what, that comes from being in the grey area! On the other hand, did you play with random trolls who left the goal all the time and the opponents team scored because of that? Sucks, right? You get what I am saying, but I just can not stress it enough: STAY IN THE GREY AREA!

overextended…

However, there are…

… situations where it is beneficial to leave your home.

In case you know for sure you have enough time to fish a loose puck and possibly return to the grey area safely: go for it! It is safer not to boost towards the puck but grab it first and have the insurance to boost back into your safe zone. Do not try to outplay anyone, you will lose the puck eventually. It is not worth the risk.

example for a safe grab

Another scenario to leave the grey area slightly is to get yourself in a better position for a hold.





Standing just a little behind his current position (drawn circle) opens up more of the goal, making the shot a dangerous possibility.

Be dynamic, try to cut off as much space as you can with your big fat immortal and also try to imagine all possible scenarios beforehand.

No immediate danger because shot is blocked. Prepare for the followup pass!

At the end of a game, when behind, you can pull goalie, which means that you trade your immortal for an extra field player. Your goal will be exposed due to you automatically going to one side of the field to do the switch. Be very careful with that!

Example of how to safely pull your goalie. By holding the puck and going to the exchange area yourself, you can minimize the dangers of getting a goal while exchanging.

Be patient!

Generally, experienced player will notice your impulsive behavior and abuse it to your disadvantage. It is very dangerous to boost out of the goal and to actually not catch the puck. In case you miss or the attacker does a simple stop command or a hook or any move to get of your boost line, the goal is wide open and an easy target. As long as you are on the line, automatically a huge part of the goal is blocked.

Do not let the attacker trick you!

Let them work! The attacker has to do something to open up the shotline or aim for a hard, precise shot and this will win your defense time to do their job.

Use your force fields wisely! Often you need to use this ability in anticipation because your reaction time is too long (hard shots, low distance), however you never ever want to waste this ability. Do not let a sneaky opponent bait it, always remember, not only can he shoot but pass, boost, turn and stop at any time. Maybe he is not charging his shot at all and is waiting for you to make a mistake. Once both your force field and boost are on cooldown, you are very vulnerable. How do you know when to use them? Intuition: Would YOU shoot? That is where the mind games begin. Any good opponent could try a different approach next time, be cautious.

Three player are swarming around in front of your goal area to catch your pass and you have no boost to get yourself in a better position safely? DO NOT pass, just wait. Of course it would be great to rush a counter in that situation, because your opponent will hardly have any defense at home, but an intercepted pass is even more dangerous than your counter attack!

Do not risk it!

Also an intercepted pass will hurt you more than a faceoff! Use offensive boosts to get out of the cover of your opponent to do a pass/shot, but make sure that the puck will reach your teammate or an area where an ally can get it, because you will be out of position to hold anything, obviously!

Boosting away to be able to pass safely.

Be smart and aware at all times!

Observe! Who likes to shoot from distance? Who likes to do lots of passes? One of the player is really good at stealing? Keep an eye on him! Every player is unique, use your idle time to get to know your enemy and react accordingly.

Know about the cooldown of every player near you! A guy just boosted to grab the puck? He will not have boost for the next couple of seconds! With timer (c shots) it is the same, sometimes people use them to pass faster or turn a catch into a shot immediately, making it unavailable for shots on the goal for a short time. Knowledge about that will make it easier for you to decide how to defend. Keep in mind: not all cooldown durations are the same!

Do not trust your own defense, ever! They can do mistakes or have lag and miss/lose the puck they should have had for any kind of reason. Pay attention to your own team! I have seen trolls in public games who try to do own goals, it is always fun to catch those. Also in many cases back passes to the keeper ended up in an own goal. Keep your eyes open and be flexible to react! It takes a second to turn a harmless situation into a dangerous one.

Positioning is one of the most important aspects. If possible, do not rely on boosts to reach one part of the goal where you expect a shot to land. Try to stay and move within good spots in the first place. Cover as much space and angles as possible. It is always good to be able to catch a shot even without abilities, in case you hit the button a little too late or miscalculate the timing of the shot or even got a freeze/lag.

If you are not sure were to stay, think a line between the puck and your goal and try to stick to that line as the puck moves.

Connect puck and the middle of your goal. Make sure to be on top of that imaginary line at all times, if there is no reason to position yourself differently.

Good Positioning: Since a pass is unlikely to succeed, a right timed block guarantees a hold here.

The available blue guy is not checked, this is one of the situations were you probably need both abilities to hold. Stay at the top corner to catch a possible shot and as soon as you see it is a pass, boost and block simultaneously towards the other end of your goal to catch the c-shot.

Of course there are different styles of keeping and it is important that you develop your own style, one that fits you best. I tried to give you an objective view of how I feel some of the better keeper do it.

To be added:

avoiding pattern movement

ad offensive boosts

reimers guide

ad pull

passing out to mates

teamstealing in dangerous situations

handling swarms in front of grey area

panicing

handling boost trick shots and boost runbys

Thanks to everyone you see on those pictures and of course thanks to Blizzard for our (FREE TO PLAY!) game. 🙂

Gl + HF all!

cu@b.net

Pink Void