I was watching some iccup tv games, and I managed to catch a qxc vs sheth game that went into late game.
QXC was turtling hard with T mech, playing a good solid style, and sheth had also macro'd up and had a gigantic lead.
Now we all are reading/hearing lots of whining about T mech versus Z, but here is where I have a huge problem:
Zergs are playing bad and stubborn late game.
Yes, bold statement, but it's true. I said it weeks ago, but Zergs still refuse to abuse the true potential of nydus canals, and that qxc vs sheth game was clearly the situation where you need to go nydus vs T mech or drop - which sheth did try a drop, except he hesitated and paid for it.
Now, Sheth had a huge bankroll in this game of minerals/gas and was maxed with max larva at his hatches so he could re-max after suiciding his army.
He spent over 6k/6k+ in suiciding his army over and over into qxc's mech defense.
Enter Zerg whining in chat after that. Then the next problem is people saying "ultra's suck" and not realizing their reasoning is entirely incorrect.
Ultras "suck" in SC1 also if you suicide over and over into sieged tanks. Ultras are the same deal here...of course they suck if you're going to suicide into sieged tanks.
The next stage of ZvT late game is mass nydus worms. Called it here first. If I played Zerg this is what I would be doing:
Going into late game macro game versus mech, and then getting 10-20 nydus worms. Does not matter if they have sensor towers.
Rather than wasting 6k+ minerals/gas worth of units stubbornly suiciding into the ball, why not spend just around 2k/2k minerals/gas into 20 nydus worms, put them all on 1 hotkey, and then in late game, literally spawn all 20 at once in 20 diff locations.
That is the key now to late game ZvT versus mech especially. You will not be able to stop all of the nydus worms, especially with T immobility.
Called it here. Stop playing bad, and build nydus worms Zergs!
i have no idea if performing the nydus abuse you describe is a foundation for late game zerg play. your idea is pretty cool but i'm not sure that using 20 nydus canals should determine the quality of your play.
i do agree that everyone is bad at late game play. wonder why that is
Try it yourself first, calling someone out on "whining" while they have to deal with the hardest thing in whole sc2 is a bit stupid. It's like playing a zvt on destination, if T doesn't fuck up there is no good way of winning.
On May 31 2010 15:57 avilo wrote: it sounds hilarious and like it would be something "funny" but I am completely serious. Anyone that has played Zero Hour knows the power of tunnels.
And watching sheth vs QXC where sheth has 11k/8k and only 2 nydus networks is making me cringe!!! both are playing good though
Drops don't do shit in this game, don't exaggerate. I'm not sure about the tunnels, but you won't have that many units to send everywhere, you will be supply blocked and it still wouldn't be enough to do that. 2 supply units suck and get obliterated in small numbers. It could work but is this an only way to win? How can you always depend on something like this lol. Basically you are saying there is no other way to beat mech (which i agree with).
On May 31 2010 15:58 condoriano wrote: Try it yourself first, calling someone out on "whining" while they have to deal with the hardest thing in whole sc2 is a bit stupid. It's like playing a zvt on destination, if T doesn't fuck up there is no good way of winning.
I do not play Zerg, but if I did it is exactly what I would be doing right now. And no Zerg in SC2 on earth is doing it right now.
On May 31 2010 16:03 faction123 wrote: so what if they counterattack with their far superior army and float a building instead of trying to deal with 20 attacks at once?
If T plays good he shouldn't be losing to this, there are 1000 things T can do. Ravens will help to defend with minimal losses too.
The only decent counter I've seen this far was Idra vs some terran, he massed broodlord/corruptors and broke tank/viking. But if t made ravens there was no way for that to happen.
There is a substantial problem with this though: terrans have learned to put turrents everywhere, and keep some tanks back. Spawning nydus is next to impossible then on many maps. They are even planetary fortressing in their main on an extra CC...
On May 31 2010 16:14 Beyonder wrote: There is a substantial problem with this though: terrans have learned to put turrents everywhere, and keep some tanks back. Spawning nydus is next to impossible then on many maps. They are even planetary fortressing in their main on an extra CC...
Yep. But just because someone can defend something does not mean you do not do it. People keep using the logic, "oh, he is 100% defended, it's not even worth trying..."
Instead, by building that many nydus worms you're forcing Terran to spread more thin, and doing essentially what you always want to be doing - concentrating all of your force at one point.
With T army spread in diff places to "stop" this type of thing, it means your 200 supply ground is concentrated versus their split up force. Meaning you are free to kill supply depots, turrets, and whatever else little infrastructure there is or army is there at that location.
Once T finally re-routes their army to stop your units, you've already done damage and can get back in the worm, and re-pop out to another location all the way across the map. It's impossible for Terran mech to teleport, whereas with this type of late game Z play, like mentioned here it is a lot like SC1 TvP recalls, except with infinite energy, and the ability to re-max to 200/200 with accumulated larva at hatcheries.
and with something extreme like 10-20 nydus worms, you're going to be able to hit a hell of a lot of places and get 1 worm through. No one plays so perfect as to stop that many right now.
ThatS 2000/2000 worth of nydus.. A Worm only drops 1 unit at a time. If youre going all in like this, wouldnt a doom drop be better? Terran ground beats zerg ground lategame anyway so when you end up losing your force youve also emptied your bank maling worms. You also need vision to worm so you would need ol everywhere - couple of vikings = trouble.
Saw the last match, oh the agony, zerg suiciding again and again and again in the terran ball. He tried some nydus but didn't work really well. I agree with the casters that mass corruptors broodlors was the answer, it's qxc air force that was the problem, with about 14kmin and 8k gaz money wasn't a problem.
doom drop no longer works vs a terran who masses vikings + ravens.. Sheth did try a doom drop but it failed horribly... i think he managed to get away with overlords at 1hp from 2 HSMs
Yeah, after seeing that series I just don't see it happening. Good terrans are just using sensor towers really well, have turrets all around the map and have tanks nicely positioned around corners.
Once he gets ravens on 3-4 bases it's jsut over. I feel like I've tried everything.... I've even tried slow pushing across the map with spore crawlers. I've tried NPing the Ravens themselves but in the off chance that the terran gets sloppy and isolates his air army from his thors/turrets and I actually do manage to get a raven WHILE throwing down a Point defense drone with it, vikings actually eat them up fairly quickly. Zergs really can't do anything cute here...
I feel that the entire ZvT mech match up is just dependent on the terran getting his third base. As soon as he gets his third base that is when he really amasses enough units so that he can just leave just enough at his bases to make them impossible to break. I think this is why we need to get mutas to force him to get more thors than necessary, to force him to build a line of turrets to his third to delay that as soon as possible. And it's at this point where the terran is most vulernable to drops and a tech switch to roaches. Delay, harass, drop, pick off, while powering hard to broodlords and corruptors.
But yeah, it's not the thors that are the problems, or even vikings. It's point defense drones. It literally neuters every single attack that the zerg has in its arsenal. It provides supreme air control.
If terran can 1a and win late game while zerg has to be fucking everywhere launching wave after wave of guerrilla attacks and slowly whittling down terran's army and economy before they can even think of engaging, the problem here is more fundamental than "zergs are playing bad".
Edit:
On May 31 2010 15:59 avilo wrote: I do not play Zerg.
If your answer to the problem of dealing with late game mech is to avoid the army indefinitely there is something wrong with the matchup. You aren't offering a solution, just merely stalling the mech army. You still can't engage the terran army so you just need to skirt around it until they give up? There needs to be a more viable strategy than that.
i was hoping IdrA would comment on this so he could tell you how dumb this idea is. If anyone has ways for trying to counter mech, it would be him, but I doubt even he has anything solid. It's broken, and will probably be addressed in a patch.
I really liked the Hydralisk/Mutalisk composition in Starcraft 1 against the Terran Mech army. I think with things like Infestors and Banelings, I don't think that Terran mech against Zerg is "broken". I haven't seen too many games with this, but has anyone tried to hydra/muta combo against Terran Mech?
Hydra/muta is dominated by tanks with stim marines in the mix. Mutas are not good against large groups of stimmed marines and the hydras just melt to the tanks. If they have ravens for good measure, it stops any type of roach unburrow on the tanks and PDD do a number on the mutas and hydras. Like I said further up, the only "solution" has been to try and exploit the T immobility, but that is really just avoiding the issue. A heads up battle in TvZ lategame (with tanks) will go T's way almost every time.
On June 01 2010 02:38 imPERSONater wrote: Hydra/muta is dominated by tanks with stim marines in the mix. Mutas are not good against large groups of stimmed marines and the hydras just melt to the tanks. If they have ravens for good measure, it stops any type of roach unburrow on the tanks and PDD do a number on the mutas and hydras. Like I said further up, the only "solution" has been to try and exploit the T immobility, but that is really just avoiding the issue. A heads up battle in TvZ lategame (with tanks) will go T's way almost every time.
Wait wait wait.....
We were talking about Mech here right? Tanks with Stimmed Marines is not mech. Tank/Marine prompts for a difference response from Zerg.
For people who didn't see the game, qxc's army composition was a handful of Thors, a huge number of Vikings, four to eight Ravens and the rest in tanks with maybe 40 SCVs maxed in the late game scenario given. Eventually it got to the point where the Ravens could act like Science Vessals with HSM on the Zerg army with Viking support to cover them.
I felt that at that point the army composition from qxc won him the game and was extremely solid. He did drag the game out longer than it needed to be, but it can be understandable to not take risks if you're ahead.
On June 01 2010 02:42 Celestial wrote: For people who didn't see the game, qxc's army composition was a handful of Thors, a huge number of Vikings, four to eight Ravens and the rest in tanks with maybe 40 SCVs maxed in the late game scenario given. Eventually it got to the point where the Ravens could act like Science Vessals with HSM on the Zerg army with Viking support to cover them.
I felt that at that point the army composition from qxc won him the game and was extremely solid. He did drag the game out longer than it needed to be, but it can be understandable to not take risks if you're ahead.
Thanks for the heads up on the unit composition. Now my proposed solution seems a bit off. Haha.
But seriously, in that type of a position, qxc must've had a huge advantage to get himself an army like that. I don't think that "Terran mech" is broken solves anything if Terran can only amass such an army when it gets a huge advantage.
On June 01 2010 02:38 imPERSONater wrote: Hydra/muta is dominated by tanks with stim marines in the mix. Mutas are not good against large groups of stimmed marines and the hydras just melt to the tanks. If they have ravens for good measure, it stops any type of roach unburrow on the tanks and PDD do a number on the mutas and hydras. Like I said further up, the only "solution" has been to try and exploit the T immobility, but that is really just avoiding the issue. A heads up battle in TvZ lategame (with tanks) will go T's way almost every time.
Wait wait wait.....
We were talking about Mech here right? Tanks with Stimmed Marines is not mech. Tank/Marine prompts for a difference response from Zerg.
I figured this composition was the problem, mech is not easy but okay to handle. Mech w/ marines is what I find to be the bane of zerg. I figured if so much trouble is being had with the composition marines must be involved (or I guess vikings) to negate any threat of air.
I agree drops and nydus worms needs to be abused more but if he manages to get his absolute money composition 200/200 with like no scvs I think mass corruptor broodlord seems like a smarter choice, since there is no unit that absolute rapes corruptors on air or absolutely rapes broodlord on the ground so he can't abuse having better units than you like with every other unit zerg can make.
now that i think about it, part of the problem is the fact that the roach supply increased to 2, meaning he has half as many roaches at 200/200 supply, cause his mass roaches were getting absolutely murdered. I think increasing the tanks supply, or giving the roach back its 1 supply would be a step forward in fixing the problem. at this point the only thing that has a chance is broods and corrupters. going ground means losing soundly.
EPT
