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I've been using the roach/lair build popularised by Day[9] in my ZvZ lately. There's a lot to like, but after a fair number of games it felt there was a bit of a hole in the way I was playing it, which I think I've managed to close.
Specifically, if my opponent decided to speedling expand, I always seemed to end up on the back foot because while roaches are great defending a tight ramp to the main, it was harder to defend an open natural against speedlings if I tried to follow suit and expand, and I couldn't punish his expansion with early roach aggression for the same reason.
The best outcome I could hope for was that a handful of fast mutalisks would get some drone kills and make him overproduce Hydras. Because Hydras are slow, twice the gas of roaches and aren't that great against them in a stand-up fight, every hydralisk he makes concedes map control and narrows the gap between his 4-gas production and my 2-gas production, giving me the chance to expand and then expand again while keeping him on two bases.
However, if he went for Mutalisks too, I was in big trouble: 2-gas muta vs 4-gas muta is not good, especially with only one hatch to make queens for defence. The same would happen if he massed queens and saturated his economy before adding hydra to his roaches.
All in all, it felt like I was trying to climb out of a hole every time I went roach/lair and my opponent speedling-expanded. Then I started messing around with banelings.
In essence, if my leading overlord or ling scout spots an early expansion I throw down a baneling nest either right before or right after I start my lair. I make a few extra roaches and some lings (I don't have numbers or timings nailed down yet), then morph banelings and send the whole lot to his natural, blocking my ramp with three more roaches ASAP.
The banelings prevent him engaging my roaches directly with his speedlings. If he tries to send one ling at a time to pick off banelings, hold-micro on my roach/baneling ball means the roaches will usually kill the zergling first. The real key, though, seems to be not trying to be greedy and use the banelings to kill drones. If I do, the massive round of speedlings he's typically making tears my roaches apart and my advantage is reduced. Instead I use hold-micro to camp in his mineral line, kill tech structures he's made or making, and really just try to stay alive as long as possible, using the banelings to discourage his lings and drones from engaging. Meanwhile I drone up, expand and choose my follow-up: if he hasn't spored up his base, or if he's making roaches too, a round of Mutalisks usually pushes the game the way I want it to go; if he has too much anti-air in place for mutas I capitalise on the drones and mining time he's lost by pushing ahead on economy. If his spire is already up, I can often take it straight back down again.
This tactic seems especially useful at equalising drone counts because as well as any potential damage you do, your opponent is usually forced to hose out a lot of speedlings at pretty much exactly the time he was hoping to pull far ahead in drones.
To sum up:
Roach into Lair (14/15p, queen+roach warren when pool finishes, lair when queen finishes).
Upon scouting a speedling expand: drop baneling nest, make roaches and some lings, attack when banelings have morphed. Re-block ramp with more roaches and expand/drone up behind your aggression. Watch out for run-by counter-attacks: be ready to cancel your expansion if necessary. You're typically way ahead if he tries this anyway because your aggressive roaches and banelings will last that much longer. In his base, keep your banelings alive to deter speedling/drone surrounds. Deny mining, snipe spire if possible/necessary. Follow up with mutalisks, powering economy or more roach/banelings as appropriate. Forced hydras are a good sign: concentrate on roaches and upgrades in that case - plus you have the baneling nest ready if he gets really silly with the hydralisk count.
I'll keep playing this and update as necessary.
Thanks for reading.
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this is pretty much common knowledge in ZvZ
Speedling/Baneling > Speedling Expand > Roach/Lair > Speedling/Baneling..
If you see him skimp out on a baneling nest with his speedling expand its always a good idea to drop the nest down and punish him for it.
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United States889 Posts
The big problem I can see with this is that I would really, really, really, worry about a ling backstab if he's got a quadrillion lings as the lingers often do.
I've been doing a variation of the day9 since basically day one in the beta, as my ling/bling micro is awful and I lose that way frequently, and zvz is the only matchup where I win well above 50% of my games. I know how you feel about constantly feeling like you have to climb out of a hole, but patience is the key. The moment your mutas come out, you expand, and you've had an enormous amount of down time waiting for the spire that you've had time to drone up to the point of waaayyyy oversaturation, so the moment that expo goes down, you can capitalize. I usually only make 5-6 mutalisks. That tends to scare them really good, and you don't want to have to make more unless it's going to punish him. The mutas are more valuable for map control than they are for harass. If you're worried about his speedlings, you make lots of roaches right after your expo does down, and you should have a significant number if he sends his speedlings. Though the naturals are often wide open, you can block your ramp with a handful of roaches and engage with the rest. It doesn't always win for me, but it usually does.
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this is pretty much common knowledge in ZvZ
Speedling/Baneling > Speedling Expand > Roach/Lair > Speedling/Baneling..
If you see him skimp out on a baneling nest with his speedling expand its always a good idea to drop the nest down and punish him for it.
I'm probably missing something, but I'm can't see where what I've posted fits in that list. I don't beat speedling expand with speedling/baneling, I beat it with a delayed Roach/baneling expand with lair tech coming online. Even if he has a baneling nest, I can kite his banes with my roach/baneling ball and still come out ahead. It's as though you got as far as "Then I started messing around with banelings." and thought "oh, he's talking about how speedling baneling beats speedling expand" and stopped reading  I'm sure I'm wrong, but I can't read your reply any other way. Can you help?
The big problem I can see with this is that I would really, really, really, worry about a ling backstab if he's got a quadrillion lings as the lingers often do.
That's why I re-wall with roaches after I send my attacking force out, and sometimes put a couple of banelings on hold position in front of them. If I can't see his lings with my scouting overlord, I wait for the defensive roaches to spawn before I head out. If he does try to backstab and swarms the ramp in desperation, he loses half his lings instantaneously to the banelings. If he tries to poke up one ling at a time, the roaches I'm rallying to the top of the ramp pick them off before they can detonate the banelings.
I get what you're saying about the mutalisks and droning up in the meantime, but what concerns me is a) the production capacity of 2 bases vs 1 over the intervening period, and b) the explosion of mutalisks he can produce off 4 gas. Yes, they're delayed by his expansion, but not as much as I expected. They quite often hatch not long after my first mutas start harassing his mineral line, at which point he has the initiative. Suddenly I'm the one needing to drop static defence and/or make hydras.
I do really like the idea of mass-droning while waiting for spire, though. It's entirely possible the real problem is that I've been over-roaching when I should have been droning, and that the banelings are 'fixing' that in one way by allowing me to be aggressive with those roaches. In other words, either might be good: be aggressive with roach/baneling to hurt his economy, or turtle with fewer roaches and drone up to keep your economy in line with his.
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This sounds good thanks for sharing
I played my last 1v1 in September so I'm curious:
have you tried to use Roach Bane to secure your nat or is it always better to pressure so the other zerg doesn't skip lings and can't power drones?
have you played against someone who (nearly completely) switches from speedlings to roaches to deal with you roach bane?
did you try to use Overseers to disrupt larva injects and delay morphing tech? If yes, what were your results?
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On February 23 2011 05:00 beetlelisk wrote:This sounds good thanks for sharing I played my last 1v1 in September so I'm curious: have you tried to use Roach Bane to secure your nat or is it always better to pressure so the other zerg doesn't skip lings and can't power drones?
I haven't tried playing it defensively, no. It doesn't feel like the right thing to do. I think if you wanted to play defensively you'd be better off doing what was suggested further up and droning like mad off one base with a thin roach wall, using your scouting overlord to make sure he's not going for a massive bust, and waiting for mutalisks to take map control so you can take one or two extra bases.
Making a bunch of roaches, a baneling nest and some banelings doesn't come cheap. From watching my own replays, a fast-expander who cuts gas and goes all-out for drones can make a hell of a lot in the time it takes to put together my offensive force. I really have to do something, right there and then, or his army will quickly (and permanently) surpass mine.
The utility of this aggressive roach/bane transition from the roach/lair opening is that it deals with a lot of otherwise very problematic openings. If he mass drones, he's pretty much toast: either his expo is going to die or he's going to sacrifice his drone advantage building static defences. If he masses queens in the expectation of defending against mutalisks while securing a better economy, my roaches can kill them, allowing my mutas to be effective - unless he cleans up my attack and rushes for spores, in which case again he's sacrificing his economic lead. If he masses speedlings - again, great: more larvae and minerals not spent on drones.
have you played against someone who (nearly completely) switches from speedlings to roaches to deal with you roach bane?
A couple of times. I'm not playing anywhere near the level where I can definitively say what should happen, but for what it's worth, on both occasions it didn't work out for him, largely because my mutalisk follow-up was uncontested. He was mining less gas; less gas means less roaches and a delayed spire...
It's by no means a sure-fire winner, obviously. I have to do damage or I'll have put myself too far behind. But it's a pretty robust attack that's very likely to do damage - a kind of ZvZ 2-rax lite.
I'm going to keep playing it and try different numbers of roaches/banes, lair and spire timings, see if can make something genuinely useful out of it.
did you try to use Overseers to disrupt larva injects and delay morphing tech? If yes, what were your results?
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Played this some more today. Learned that the more aggressively economical the opponent's opening is, the earlier my attack needs to be. Learned this by missing the chance to smash a hatch-first at the 6:30 mark and losing to superior roach numbers a few minutes later.
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yeah I basically did this in my ladders too, you NEED to form a good timing attack, preferably into his main.
It is incredibly hard for him to engage your roach/ling army since if he run in few lings to snipe your roach dominates. Hug wall and try to creep into his main ftw.
Transition into mass queen/roach to deal with mutas that come out.
The problem I can see is if he time his muta right, he can use those to snipe your banes then hit with ling, it's a delicate timing but if u do go roach/lair tech that's ur only option
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On February 24 2011 11:40 evanthebouncy! wrote:The problem I can see is if he time his muta right, he can use those to snipe your banes then hit with ling, it's a delicate timing but if u do go roach/lair tech that's ur only option
Yeah; it's important to hit that early window for a lot of reasons
The whole build is feeling a lot more solid and responsive since I included this deviation. My decisions now look like this:
* Scout with 9th/10th drone to catch 6/7 pool so I can delay gas if necessary.
* Send overlord to his ramp/natural to watch for an expansion and keep an eye on his army
* Three roaches to block ramp ASAP
* Has he expanded with a lot of lings? If so, make four more roaches and then drop a baneling nest. Make drones and lings while the nest is building, morph when the nest is done and then make three more roaches to block the ramp as I head out.
* Has he expanded with roaches? If so, make at least four more roaches and head straight out while teching to mutalisks. I need to make the most of the 300 minerals he's spent expanding: I can't afford to be a base down against roaches for very long. Following up with mutalisks seems to work regardless of whether he sticks to roaches or switches to mutas himself.
* Is he one-basing with ling/bling? Make enough roaches to ensure he can't bust my ramp, tech to spire and drone like a mo'fo. After his attack fails:
--- Is he trying again? Just reinforce with roaches and continue to push for mutalisks. If he's mad enough to turtle up and try for hydra at that point I'll just expand and roach him to death.
--- Is he expanding? If he is, he'll generally have the remains of his speedlings out to protect it, right under my scouting overlord. The last game that happened, I dropped a baneling nest and followed up my first mutalisks with a delayed roach/bling push. That worked really well.
And so on. All in all, ZvZ has become my favourite matchup, win or lose: lots of decision making, the ability to scout reasonably safely, and when I get on four bases to his two I can go fucking kill him.
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EPT
