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Hello fellow TLers,
Today I saw something interesting in a game of Heart of the Swarm, in a game casted by MrLlamaSC, RootCatz(Z) vs. TriBones(P).
In this game, we see Bones open one gate into expo, with two fast gases for sentries and a mothership core. He gets a fast +1 attack at a forward-placed forge, probably to fake a gateway push - Catz responds by building a couple spines, but Bones makes a stargate at around 7:30 and produces two oracles. Catz scouts the completed stargate and has plenty of queens to defend two oracle harass. These queens turn out to be a key part of the upcoming midgame for Catz - having 6+ queens allows him to spread his creep nearly across the map with ease at the 12:00 minute mark. From there, we have two pieces to the zerg midgame: lots of queens, and lots of creep spread. This gives us plenty of excess gas to dump into our tech part of choice, and here Catz builds an infestation pit and uses his excess gas for 7-8 swarm hosts and 8 or so infestors. The large creep spread allows him to place his swarm hosts in the middle of the map, protected from air threats by a large amount of queens:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KWe2r.jpg?1)
And from there, the zerg has the ability to siege both the natural and third of the protoss from one location, while expanding towards the protoss:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KvIUj.jpg?1?7579)
From here, Catz can do a number of things to attack the protoss. By controlling the direction of the locusts, Catz can attack the protoss where the protoss player is not- if he goes to defend his third, the next locusts go to the natural, and vice versa. Also, if the protoss over commits to one location, the other can get hit with mass infested terrans at the same time, potentially taking out the base. The extra queens protect the swarm hosts from air threats, and the infestors great defensive powers can protect the siege camp in the middle of the map. Here swarm hosts are being used offensively, and queens and infestors are being used defensively.
Here is a great example, I believe, of how ZvP is changing- zerg now has a liar tech option of map control that is not the typical roach max - swarm hosts requiring the infestation pit gives zerg a lot of flexibility in the midgame that they previously did not have before. A consistent transition out of this composition has yet to be seen although I think most zerg players are still struggling to find their ideal late game compositions in Heart of the Swarm.
Leave me some feedback if you did/did not enjoy this blog!
-Spaceman
 
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Howling Peak in general REALLY sucks for Protoss vs Zerg and you'll be hearing a lot more about that once HOTS goes live, assuming it goes live with the map pool on beta.
As per this strategy, there's a great post on the B.NET forums that discusses fundamental problems with the Swarm Host design http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/7350535414
To sum up. Swarm Hosts in small numbers cannot hope to achieve much in the way of creating the kind of pressure that's being demonstrated in the above game. The only way to really make a strategy like the one CatZ utilized possible is to create enough Swarm Hosts that the strategy eventually turns into an all in. If it fails to cause considerable economic damage to the Protoss, the Zerg is so heavily invested in the Swarm Host tech that teching to Hive or tech switching back into Hydralisks or Infestors is very difficult to do.
On the flip side, especially on this map it's a very difficult contain to break for the Protoss player once it is set up. On beta it's pretty common to see this build decimate newer Protoss players that are not used to seeing it, but is much less effective as Protoss players become more accustomed to it and how to better prepare for it.
So while Swarm Hosts are very effective weapons in larger numbers precisely because of strategies like this one, the fundamental design of the unit makes it very difficult to incorporate into non-all in strategies. If nothing about the unit design changes we're eventually going to see them used as a core unit of certain key all in builds, but as of now they do not really have much of a place in standard play.
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While I agree the above has potential, and I do think that a few well microed swarm hosts are more effective than people thing, but the above contain actually looks pretty soft to me. Is it too unreasonable to grab your deathball + mothership core, kill zergs third and natural by way of toss third -> zerg third while the swarm hosts are turning around, and then recall back and defend your third/nat + main.
ms core could easily go over and snipe the tumors along that attack path before this point, and a warp prism or stargate army could just go around the other side of the map and hit the natural/main rather than third/nat.
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I agree that the swarm host is not working yet but I hope it gets fixed in patches...I don't rly use it much atm because it tends to just get slaughtered by other units...whether roach hydra, bio ball, or even gateway armies (pony balls) and of course any air unit.
Artisian I'm wondering what you're getting at by saying their better well micro'd than people think. Are you talking about tactics in which way u send their way point like this thread shows or micro'ing the actual locusts?
I've certainly used them in a handful of team games with good success...but that's not saying much.
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Swarm host is imba beyond imagination and they must be stupid not to change that ceasless wave of huge range and high DPS. End of story.
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On January 13 2013 03:39 BaDMannerS wrote:
Swarm host is imba beyond imagination and they must be stupid not to change that ceasless wave of huge range and high DPS. End of story.
uh lol? It's really easy to counter swarmhosts. Get 4+ colossi and with FF you will slaughter them.
If zerg is smart and going corruptor/swarmhost. You can go templar which is good vs them or you can go colossi/voidray/ground army which will crush it (voidrays are very powerful and CRUSH corruptors hardcore).
Instead of complaining about a non existant "imbalance" you should learn how to fight it.
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just wanted to give props to SpacemanG for predicting the metagame when everyone was saying sh's are useless
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EPT
