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Hey TLers,
I figure I post enough here, I might as well start a blog so I can rant in peace without mucking up discussions in general/strategy. So here goes:
ZvT is a crap-shoot in SC2 right now and I don't understand why Blizzard is OK leaving things in this state.
This has specifically to do with a build that is retaking its throne from the 2-rax due to lack of scouting information Zerg can get:
Barracks > Factory > Reactor
Now, this build is not new. It's actually quite old. It was the popular opening in beta and lasted all the way through GSL 2 where Boxer popularized the 2-rax openers. Well, it's back and it's worse than ever.
The problem scouting rax > fact > reactor is that it doesn't actually give you any information.
What build is T going for?
hellion/marauder?
marine/tank?
hellion/banshee?
TLO hellions?
marine drop?
hellion drop?
You seriously have no idea what T is going to come at you with and you only have roughly 2 minutes before the chosen strat is at your doorstep, the longer you wait to scout (hopefully giving you more information), the less time you have to react (and utilize that information).
Couple this with the fact that the Terran economy is naturally ahead of Zerg at this point in the game (which is fine, Zergs economy kicks in shortly after) and you end up with a very frustrating situation from Z's point of view.
I have dubbed it "The coin flip: Heads, Terran wins; Tails, we play a game"
Any one of these openings can be a game-ender for the Zerg player. Every one of them requires a completely different response, and it takes an all-in by Zerg if he wants to counter-attack after defending (which will also be a game-ender if T didn't expand).
-Marines basically require Banelings, but going for Mutas will cost you the game
-Siege tanks require large amounts of Zerglings or Roaches, but Banelings need to be handled delicately (and they won't do anything to the tanks themselves anyway), 1 good siege shot will end the game
-Hellions can be handled with pretty much any unit but require attention and micro, letting them roast more than a handful of drones will easily set you behind
-Marauders take a significant amount of Zerglings or Mutalisks, both of which would get slaughtered by Marines; meanwhile, they'll walk right over Banelings
-The ability to drop so early means that Spine Crawlers at the Natural are a bad investment (not that they are all that worthwhile vs a straight-up push anyway)
For the most part, Terran can pick his unit composition on a whim with no attention given to what Zerg is doing. He can send out those first 10 or so units and has a chance at winning the game right there. Then to top it off, he's not dedicated to any of those units through-out the game as the only associated research required would be Siege-Mode, and it's hard to come up with reasons why a Terran wouldn't want Siege Tanks eventually in a TvZ.
Against a decent/lucky opponent, this push will fail miserably leaving the Zerg player with a handful of combat units and the Terran player with a natural expansion getting settled in. The push fails, and the game is even...
Now I don't have a problem with Terran having an easy way to set up a natural, without the ability to get a 2nd base up, the race would be broken. What I do have a problem with is the fact all of these openings requires a perfect response from Zerg, or he has been put further behind, possibly in a game-ending situation, simply due to the fact that he didn't guess right. Even if he DOES guess right, all he has done is earn the ability to play a game vs his Terran opponent.
Random chance != Strategy
Random chance in my strategy game != fun
Something needs to be done about the opening stages of ZvT. I'm tired of flipping coins.
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You need to sacrifice and overlord, no way around it.
Play a bunch of games/watch replays, notice when you can clearly state what the terran is going for, and use it in the future to poke with an overlord to see that of the follwing he is going.
You will get much better you have the mind set that you are not doing something right, than thinking that it is the games fault you are not winning.
I can give an example in BW.
If terran goes early gas, he might be going mech, with is the most logical thing, but a lot of times it will be fake mech, and you hydras melt to marines.
Or playing as if he is going to use 1 rax FE, and when your scout dies plant additional rax.
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I do sac an overlord... That's how I know he's going rax > fact > reactor.
The problem is, saccing the overlord still doesn't tell me anything.
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Calgary25977 Posts
Why don't you scout with a Zergling & Overlord? What you're saying is similar to ZvT in BW, and yet people have managed to deal with it...
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Sacrifice it later, when you can clearly state what he is going for
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Can you post a couple replays? I have a pretty interesting ZvT opening I'm working on that I might be willing to share, if you show some replays of what you're losing to.
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hellion/marauder? zerglings and spine crawlers
marine/tank? not a crapshoot whatsoever
hellion/banshee? zerglings and queens.. a crapshoot if you do not get a 3rd queen however mutas should be popping soon
TLO hellions? dunno what these are.. cant be too much stronger than blue flame at best
marine drop? more zerglings.. how is this a crapshoot by any means.. what does this defeat in a rock-paper-scissors scenario????
hellion drop? need overlords placed around your base to make sure you have zerglings positioned under the dropship. only a threat if the hellions manage to get out of the medivac. haypro spreads 1 creep tumor around his base on scrap station and it seems to work marvelously
Every unit composition you list seems to be unbeatable in your eyes. That is illogical.
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I'll put some reps up when I get home today, problem is I decide to post while I'm at work, so I can't show the shitty situation in an actual game for several hours.
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Calgary25977 Posts
I know what you're saying, but the situation isn't even close to as dire as you make it sound with proper scouting.
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On February 01 2011 00:38 SlapMySalami wrote:
hellion/marauder? zerglings and spine crawlers
marine/tank? not a crapshoot whatsoever
hellion/banshee? zerglings and queens.. a crapshoot if you do not get a 3rd queen however mutas should be popping soon
TLO hellions? dunno what these are.. cant be too much stronger than blue flame at best
marine drop? more zerglings.. how is this a crapshoot by any means.. what does this defeat in a rock-paper-scissors scenario????
hellion drop? need overlords placed around your base to make sure you have zerglings positioned under the dropship. only a threat if the hellions manage to get out of the medivac. haypro spreads 1 creep tumor around his base on scrap station and it seems to work marvelously
Every unit composition you list seems to be unbeatable in your eyes. That is illogical.
You missed the point.
If you were to tell me which unit composition you're coming at me with, I would be all over it. The problem is in the fact that there is no consistent way to find out which one of those compositions is coming at me.
Every one of them is completely beatable with the right response, but about 20-30% of the time, I guessed wrong, gg.
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just switch races... playing zerg isn't worth the effort right now.
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If you think TvZ is bad, TvP is worse. Guessing game from both sides. -_-
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On February 01 2011 00:43 Jermstuddog wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 00:38 SlapMySalami wrote:
hellion/marauder? zerglings and spine crawlers
marine/tank? not a crapshoot whatsoever
hellion/banshee? zerglings and queens.. a crapshoot if you do not get a 3rd queen however mutas should be popping soon
TLO hellions? dunno what these are.. cant be too much stronger than blue flame at best
marine drop? more zerglings.. how is this a crapshoot by any means.. what does this defeat in a rock-paper-scissors scenario????
hellion drop? need overlords placed around your base to make sure you have zerglings positioned under the dropship. only a threat if the hellions manage to get out of the medivac. haypro spreads 1 creep tumor around his base on scrap station and it seems to work marvelously
Every unit composition you list seems to be unbeatable in your eyes. That is illogical. You missed the point. If you were to tell me which unit composition you're coming at me with, I would be all over it. The problem is in the fact that there is no consistent way to find out which one of those compositions is coming at me. Every one of them is completely beatable with the right response, but about 20-30% of the time, I guessed wrong, gg.
The point is that all of those can be handled with zerglings with a slight chance of spine crawlers. As the zerg you are granted a blanket build that covers everything a terran can throw at you up to a certain point. What unit do you plan on using? You said yourself hellions are countered by any unit as long as you micro the unit. What other unit counters zerglings?
The problem with zvt comes from short rush distances which power up cheese significantly.
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Think of units that can help with hellions and banshees and 3-rax all in push:
Queens.
Whenever I'm in the dark vs. Terran, I get two extra queens. If he goes banshee, the queens shut it down pretty fast. If he goes Hellions, I can constrict spaces and stop him from getting into my main. If he is doing a big push, I can throw down spine crawlers and transfuse them like crazy with my stacked energy.
They don't have to be queens, but think of general unit compositions/builds that can help with situations like this.
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On February 01 2011 00:26 Jermstuddog wrote:
I have dubbed it "The coin flip: Heads, Terran wins; Tails, we play a game"
haha, such a great way to put it, so true
Saccing an overlord just doesn't cut it every time, it's not like terran can't hide tech in an obscure corner of his base, it's not like he can't shoot down the overlord before it see's anything.
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I don't really follow. On seeing barracks->factory + rax I just do the following...
Make 1-2 spine crawlers.
Make a 3rd queen.
Cut drones around 30-40 drones. 40 drones on 2 bases should out econ any 1 base Terran and rax->fact + reactor isn't setting up for an early expand (use a spotting ling for an expand anyways).
Start on Lair->Spire (well I do this anyways, but still).
Make baneling nest after lair starts.
Make 8-12 lings right before you expect them to push out in case they drop hellions or do a push. If they go to push out you should have your 8-12 lings + a 2nd round of lings out in time for something like 20-30 lings + your crawler + your queens. If they keep up constant pressure with hellion/marauder you should be able to finish it off with your first round of mutalisks. If it's tank/marine just use some banelings, creep spread, and lings to handle it.
Though usually I don't have to do all of the above and can optimize a bit more. Scouting the ramp a couple of times will tell you all you need to know. If he wants to go with marauders he needs a techlab on his barracks. If he wants his banshees to really beat out your mutalisks then he needs to cut something, be it hellions or by making a techlab with the barracks. Otherwise he should only have enough time to kill your queens and maybe some drones before your first few mutas come out and stop the harass.
The difference between hold vs marauders and holding vs marines is non-existent really. I don't think there's any map where the rush distance is shorter than the time it takes to morph banelings (except maybe short metal). Just have lings, spot his ramp, and morph if he's moving out with marines. Plus you should see a tech lab on the barracks if he's going marauders. You can also have 20-25 lings with 5 or so banelings to have a reasonable army vs either composition, just lead/surround with the lings so the banelings can be effective.
Once you identify the type of pressure, defend and drone. Usually I'll sac an overlord just for that extra edge if I get good info, but it's not always necessary.
Also don't expect to come out with a perfect defense and 0 losses or need for crisis management. If Zerg could do that then the game wouldn't be balanced, zerg would be OP. Such early pressure is Terran's way of keeping you in the game.
ZvT is the least guessing matchup for zerg imo. Protoss and Zerg mirrors have way more guessing.
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On February 01 2011 01:18 Omni17 wrote:
Think of units that can help with hellions and banshees and 3-rax all in push:
Queens.
Whenever I'm in the dark vs. Terran, I get two extra queens. If he goes banshee, the queens shut it down pretty fast. If he goes Hellions, I can constrict spaces and stop him from getting into my main. If he is doing a big push, I can throw down spine crawlers and transfuse them like crazy with my stacked energy.
They don't have to be queens, but think of general unit compositions/builds that can help with situations like this.
I've tried this out and really like the idea but I just can't seem to get enough queens to be worthwhile. Maybe it needs to be smoothed out, but I just never seem to have enough queens or enough energy on them.
Going for just a few Roaches and Queen sounds like a solid composition. If I can get a day or two of timing manipulation, but I think it could become a very solid defensive opener in ZvT, and I've always like the Roach as a base unit in my ZvT composition for the mid game (especially with Queens to heal them), but never really have a good way of getting there.
As funny as it sounds, I think ZvT mid-game is relatively unexplored because both Marines and Mutalisks are SOOO strong in that match-up, nobody wants to do anything else.
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On February 01 2011 00:53 mesohawny wrote:
just switch races... playing zerg isn't worth the effort right now.
Technically that would be better. If either side makes the wrong assumption, it can cost them the game.
In the opening stages of TvZ, making the wrong assumption can only cost Zerg the game. Terran will simply lose a few units, not enough to even put him behind. Not saying that is an impossible scenario, but with the current trends, T has to make a pretty big blunder along with Z going all-in for it to cost him anything significant.
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On February 01 2011 00:57 SlapMySalami wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 00:43 Jermstuddog wrote:On February 01 2011 00:38 SlapMySalami wrote:
hellion/marauder? zerglings and spine crawlers
marine/tank? not a crapshoot whatsoever
hellion/banshee? zerglings and queens.. a crapshoot if you do not get a 3rd queen however mutas should be popping soon
TLO hellions? dunno what these are.. cant be too much stronger than blue flame at best
marine drop? more zerglings.. how is this a crapshoot by any means.. what does this defeat in a rock-paper-scissors scenario????
hellion drop? need overlords placed around your base to make sure you have zerglings positioned under the dropship. only a threat if the hellions manage to get out of the medivac. haypro spreads 1 creep tumor around his base on scrap station and it seems to work marvelously
Every unit composition you list seems to be unbeatable in your eyes. That is illogical. You missed the point. If you were to tell me which unit composition you're coming at me with, I would be all over it. The problem is in the fact that there is no consistent way to find out which one of those compositions is coming at me. Every one of them is completely beatable with the right response, but about 20-30% of the time, I guessed wrong, gg. The point is that all of those can be handled with zerglings with a slight chance of spine crawlers. As the zerg you are granted a blanket build that covers everything a terran can throw at you up to a certain point. What unit do you plan on using? You said yourself hellions are countered by any unit as long as you micro the unit. What other unit counters zerglings? The problem with zvt comes from short rush distances which power up cheese significantly.
The problem is really the marines, if he does a stim timing push with a significant amount of marines no amount of lings or spine crawlers will save you. Unless you want to completely destroy your econ and die a few minutes later, you have to have banlings. There is no blanket build for zerg that can handle all of terrans quick timing pushes.
I've been meaning to experiment with an early roach defense, that sounds promising to me to eliminate some of the guessing game.
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^
I'm not even trying to talk about delayed pushes like stim, which is part of the problem but I'm trying to keep the scope narrower than that. Though I will agree that Marines in general are slightly too good in SC2, and I think that is largely where the problem comes from.
If I didn't have to get blings AND bling speed ASAP, Roach/ling or ling/muta would be realistic at that point in the game and marauder/hellion pushes wouldn't be nearly as scary.
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Yeah I predict the marine or stim will get nerfed sooner or later, it's just stupidly good at almost everything. You can get like one dropship full of marines clumped up against your minerals so you can't surround them, and they will kill your hatch/lair before you ever have enough lings to kill them. You have to already have banelings or you're SOL.
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On February 01 2011 01:45 Jermstuddog wrote:
^
I'm not even trying to talk about delayed pushes like stim, which is part of the problem but I'm trying to keep the scope narrower than that. Though I will agree that Marines in general are slightly too good in SC2, and I think that is largely where the problem comes from.
If I didn't have to get blings AND bling speed ASAP, Roach/ling or ling/muta would be realistic and marauder/hellion pushes wouldn't be nearly as scary.
If you scout a factory and rax and see a reactor on the factory or techlab on the barracks then you should be able to delay baneling speed until after spire. Worst case is he pushes and you have slow blings, but it's not possible for him to have a crazy # of marines + something from a factory + stim with the way he's put his add-ons so slow banelings on creep should be fine so long as you lead and surround with lings first. Since you can morph banelings as he moves out (or keep just a few morphed until you confirm his composition), you can have ling/muta if he moves out with hellions, marauders or banshees.
EDIT: The big thing to is to not lose drones at your natural if he pushes with something stronger than you can handle. Even if you lose the nat itself, if you save the drones and crush the attack with reinforcements then you're not out of the game yet since he's delayed his expansion so much.
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I feel like Z has scouting problems in the early game which is basically what most people already think. I disagree though that you play a fair game after that, a Z fending off one of those attacks is quite ahead while if they don't, they're dead.
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On February 01 2011 01:58 dcberkeley wrote:
I feel like Z has scouting problems in the early game which is basically what most people already think. I disagree though that you play a fair game after that, a Z fending off one of those attacks is quite ahead while if they don't, they're dead.
This is true at all, even in pro level games, it isn't uncommon for zerg to actually be slightly behind after executing a perfect defense. This is because zerg mid/late game depends so heavily on building up an econ in the early game. Terran can send his army off to die, but because zerg was forced to not make drones, terran still might be ahead, and he is still basically un-attackable after sending his army to die.
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On February 01 2011 01:54 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 01:45 Jermstuddog wrote:
^
I'm not even trying to talk about delayed pushes like stim, which is part of the problem but I'm trying to keep the scope narrower than that. Though I will agree that Marines in general are slightly too good in SC2, and I think that is largely where the problem comes from.
If I didn't have to get blings AND bling speed ASAP, Roach/ling or ling/muta would be realistic and marauder/hellion pushes wouldn't be nearly as scary. If you scout a factory and rax and see a reactor on the factory or techlab on the barracks then you should be able to delay baneling speed until after spire. Worst case is he pushes and you have slow blings, but it's not possible for him to have a crazy # of marines + something from a factory + stim with the way he's put his add-ons so slow banelings on creep should be fine so long as you lead and surround with lings first. Since you can morph banelings as he moves out (or keep just a few morphed until you confirm his composition), you can have ling/muta if he moves out with hellions, marauders or banshees. EDIT: The big thing to is to not lose drones at your natural if he pushes with something stronger than you can handle. Even if you lose the nat itself, if you save the drones and crush the attack with reinforcements then you're not out of the game yet since he's delayed his expansion so much.
You lose your natural hatch and it's gg unless your opponent is flat out terrible at macro.
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On February 01 2011 01:54 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 01:45 Jermstuddog wrote:
^
I'm not even trying to talk about delayed pushes like stim, which is part of the problem but I'm trying to keep the scope narrower than that. Though I will agree that Marines in general are slightly too good in SC2, and I think that is largely where the problem comes from.
If I didn't have to get blings AND bling speed ASAP, Roach/ling or ling/muta would be realistic and marauder/hellion pushes wouldn't be nearly as scary. If you scout a factory and rax and see a reactor on the factory or techlab on the barracks then you should be able to delay baneling speed until after spire. Worst case is he pushes and you have slow blings, but it's not possible for him to have a crazy # of marines + something from a factory + stim with the way he's put his add-ons so slow banelings on creep should be fine so long as you lead and surround with lings first. Since you can morph banelings as he moves out (or keep just a few morphed until you confirm his composition), you can have ling/muta if he moves out with hellions, marauders or banshees. EDIT: The big thing to is to not lose drones at your natural if he pushes with something stronger than you can handle. Even if you lose the nat itself, if you save the drones and crush the attack with reinforcements then you're not out of the game yet since he's delayed his expansion so much.
The best way to deal with the hellion/marauder push to get early mutas: drop your first 100 gas on Lair, 2nd 100 gas on Roaches to hold off the hellion harass, no bling nest, and drop a spire as soon as Lair finishes. You should have ~4 mutas, your roaches, and some slowlings ready just as the marauder/hellion push reaches your natural.
The problem is this dies to just about any of the strategies that involve marines because marines are just so damn good.
Back to the Hellion/Marauder:
Getting a bling nest, even after the Lair is 100/50 + drone wasted (blings are so important though, its almost laughable to recommend skipping this tech, even for the minute or two where you know it's not critical). If I have terrible scouting and start bling speed that's another 150/150. Sure, I've had games where I get both and hold off the push anyway, but things are significantly harder when you're investing in the wrong tech. And things are even worse when this wrong tech is pretty much required BEFORE you get into the mid-game with stim timing pushes.
To reinstate my position, I have no problem with pushes in this timing of the game, I just wish they weren't so incredibly variable with such a high possibility of ending the game right there.
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It sounds like you run into this a lot, so do yourself a favor and see how the Terran sets up their play. You should see a lot of similarities, like for a marine rush they may get 1-2 reactors on 3-4 rax, or cloaked banshee play could have two geysers taken early. You should also notice timing windows before the strategies kick in (and a lot of them should be similar) - this is the time you send an overlord in without hope of coming back. Sure, they can have roving marines or hide their tech, but either way you learn SOMETHING! You should also be poking at the front door to get a feel for the marine count. You learn something if there are a lot of marines at the wall (an early rush is coming, get a baneling nest).
Instead of illustrating this example further, I'll turn to another, better-known matchup - BW ZvP. Most Protoss fast expand. There's a lot they can do with a fast expand - mass corsair to kill all the overlords, a 10 minute timing attack, corsair/reaver play, storm drops, corsair/dark templar play, a delayed 2 gate rush or all-in 4 gate (plus a ton more, but these were the most common I found from experience on the iccup D ladder). When you watch the pros you see the 10 minute timing attack a lot, many beginner zergs will blindly prepare for it by doing the standard macro-heavy opening. These leads to a lot of defeats by lower level protosses who recognize the blind preparation and kill your economy with a handful of zealots (if not beating you outright, beating you when their economy kicks in, which is before the zerg economy kicks in, btw). Without overlord scouting and zerglings keeping tabs on the front, you have no way of knowing what is coming. More often than not, the scouting overlord plus one or two more will die to corsairs, so the expectation is built into the strategy. Moral of the story: your lack of scouting doesn't make ZvT a crapshoot. It's not perfect, but it's not as bad as you're making it seem.
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On February 01 2011 00:36 Chill wrote:
Why don't you scout with a Zergling & Overlord? What you're saying is similar to ZvT in BW, and yet people have managed to deal with it...
Well, in SCBW, it was much much much easier to defend your natural, thank you to chokes. In SC2, this isn't so true - the rush distance and difficulty of defending makes it a little random in its current state.
or, in other words, the current map pool sucks.
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TvZ Terran can do w.e he wants because he knows the zerg must adapt or we die.
I've never seen a terran react to what i'm doing until his army got beat besides the fact that I drop a roach warren which is GG most of the time early game anyways.
It sucks where the first 10 minutes of the game is dictated by my initial scout, poking zerglings, and sacing an overlord at 5-6 minutes. any later and you're playing with fire by giving even less response time.
oh and better terrans know where overlords come from so they don't get anywhere past 3-4 screen inches into his base if you wait after 6:00, and any earlier you'll see 1-2 rax wall in and a building factory, whooo! LOL.
oh, add the fact that terran's tech tree is a simplified joke compared to zerg's midgame, not having 1 building can screw you (spire sniping lol)
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EPT
