Things Casters/Players Say - Page 2

These tiny skirmishes are typically waged between zealots and zerglings, so we'll concentrate on two particular situations that will apply to dragoons as well, although dragoons are very weak against zerglings when dragoons are sent in small numbers. There are other small battle situations, like hydralisks vs zealots, where you run your hydras away from the zealots, then hit "h" for hold position so the hydralisks will fire, then run them again and repeat. I would advocate focusing on your macro though, and not trying to over-micro tiny battles that aren't really going to make much of a difference anyhow unless you have 400 apm and can control everything at once.

In the open - creating an arc

You need 3 zerglings per zealot, which might seem unfair at first glance, but if you consider that a zealot costs 100 minerals, and a pair of zerglings costs only 50 minerals, you'll see that it technically costs 75 minerals for each of your opponents' 100. Once the zealots become higher in numbers, they steadily become exponentially more powerful, especially when they get their upgrades. If you're reading this guide though, you've probably already had horrible nightmares about zealots.

So, remember, you need to group your units before attacking. Don't attack in a line into zealots, or you're basically wasting your money.



A line of zerglings attacking into zealots is totally wrong


1.




Before coming in contact with your opponent's zealots, your want to group all your forces together. Make sure when going from point A to point B, that point B is not DIRECTLY INTO THE ZEALOTS. It should be close to them, though.


2.




Order your zerglings to run past the zealots by using the move command.


3.




Attack-move the ground on the other side of the zealot cluster once your zerglings arc around the zealots.


And voila.



Zealot behind the minerals

Sometimes, zealots will run behind the minerals. This is mainly for when they can't retreat without getting killed, and want to maximize their damage before they die. The minerals act as a barrier so they can't be surrounded.




Again, mass a clump of zerglings before attacking, but this time, split them up and send them around the minerals in both directions.



This will allow you to attack the zealots with the maximum number of zerglings possible.



Probe intercept


Denying the Protoss an opportunity to scout the timing of your lair, and how many drones/zerglings you have is a crucial part of outplaying your opponent. If they have no scout, they're basically blind until their corsair arrives, so they won't know if you're massing speedlings or making a hydralisk den to bust their front, or just playing a "standard" sort of game.

So, when the probe enters your base, don't try and kill it with your drones, because that's a waste of time. If the probe attacks a drone, pull the drone away when it gets into yellow health by selecting it and then right-clicking on a different mineral patch. If the drone gets into the red, SAVE THAT LITTLE DUDE. Hotkey the drone and run it around away from the probe, rather than letting it die.

Now, realistically, you'll need at least 4 zerglings to catch the probe, unless you're Jaedong and can catch it with just two zerglings (sick!). I don't think you really need a diagram to understand how this works:

Select one zergling, and right-click on the probe to have it pursue. Take the other 3-5 zerglings and put them in a group and move them around to head the probe off and surround it. Once you surround the probe, I find that attack-moving seems to be more effective than attack-clicking the probe itself.



Putting it together: Defending against a 2-gate opening

There are basically three 2-gate openings for Protoss:

- 9/9 gates
- 10/12 gates
- 9/9 proxy gates

All of the above have similar responses: zerglings and sunken colonies. For the proxy gate situation, let's say you opened with an 11pool on Heartbreak Ridge. Your overlord sees nothing in their natural, so you start scouting their base and also see nothing, so you're like "Okay, there must be a proxy somewhere." So, cool. You slap down a couple of sunken colonies in your main base, and then send your first six zerglings straight to the Protoss base, and continue making lings. Then cancel your expansion and rebuild that hatchery in your main base. The Protoss main should be undefended, so you'll have little problem attacking it. If the probes are giving you a hard time, just target the nexus itself, and all the probes will pull off the line to try and surround the zerglings. If you repeat this process enough times, the nexus dies and the game is over. If they're not very good with probe control, you can pick them off, and even give yourself zergling speed later. Keep in mind that Protoss does not bode well when they have few workers.

For the other 2-gate openings, you'll need to play more defensively. If the Protoss doesn't go proxy, and they see you going for their base, they can just block their ramp with zealots, forcing you to attack up the ramp 2-by-2, which is suicidal for zerglings.

You need to stabilize the situation before you can go ahead and start building your economy or going up the tech tree. To stop the attack, you have to build zerglings from all your larva. Once your natural expansion finishes, it will begin emitted creep, and you will want to place 2 - 3 creep colonies at your natural. Once of the creep colonies will almost certainly die, but you want to morph all of them into sunken colonies, and cancel the hurt sunken colony before it finishes. Your probes should target the probes first and pick them all off before engaging the zealots. Again, you want to get a good mass of units before attacking, and to position to surround the units you want to attack.

Note - when attacking probes and zealots, you have to manually right-click the probes because if you A-move, the zerglings will automatically target only the zealots, and the probes will amplify the damage that the zealots do to your units without taking damage themselves, so micro your zerglings to snipe the probes!

The mid-game is that uncomfortable area of play where you don't have your hive tech, and don't really have lurkers to engage with, so you're stuck with just hydralisks and zerglings, unless of course, you opened with some kind of lurker build and you're turtling up to hive, but that's an entirely different scenario. I'm talking about the good old-fashioned hydra build where you have a lot of hydralisks.

So, here's my thoughts on the early-ish-mid-game: You don't really want to engage with pure hydralisks, because they can be difficult to control, and if you lose them, you're basically fucked because your plan revolves around having hydralisks. Here's what hydralisks are good at doing: killing zealots, killing archons, defending overlords from corsairs. Here's what they are bad at: surviving under psi storms. For this reason, you can use them to defend against zealots and maybe 1-2 templars, but after that, the number of psi storms becomes ridiculous, so you don't really want to go attack the Protoss base unless there's a weird situation where the Protoss is stupid and puts only one high templar at their expansion. You can't depend on your opponent to be stupid or smart, so you'll have to keep scouting by sending overlords and zerglings to areas of interest. However, many Protoss players will place 5-6 gateways before expanding, giving them a window of opportunity to attack on certain maps. So, if you're opening with hydralisks, this presents a challenge: how do you defend against an aggressive Protoss who has a lot of psi storms to drop on your hydralisks?

First, keep in mind that Protoss ground units all move at different speeds. For this reason, their army quickly separates if they don't stop to group their forces while moving. For example, zealots move very fast (once they get their leg speed) and high templar move tediously slow. This means you can delay the Protoss from advancing if you do a large hit-and-run tactic, or they can be dumb and lose all their zealots. Additionally, you can catch bad Protosses off-guard by sending 6 hydralisks around to the back of the Protoss army and sniping the slow-moving high templar. But let's focus on that larger engagement, shall we?

The engagement will take place on an area larger than a single screen, so you will have to issue many of your orders by clicking on the mini-map.
Remember to have a scouting zergling or overlord in a position so that you will not be caught off-guard.
Hydralisks are stronger with support. If you send in zerglings first, make sure they hit with the hydralisks simultaneously. This can be a bit tricky to pull off, but it can be really worth it if you just wipe out the Protoss army on the spot, which will force them to turtle.


1.




Set up at least 3-4 groups, all hotkeyed in a pre-positioned arc. The closer you set them up to the Protoss force, the longer you can delay the attack until your lurkers arrive. Don't forget to keep macroing during this engagement, because your reinforcements might just be able to just wipe out the remaining Protoss forces. Additionally, you want to continue to stay on top of your upgrades, and make sure you're working towards lurkers, just in case the engagement goes poorly.

The Protoss army will usually move in a large blob, always regrouping to account for the differentials in unit speeds among their forces, allowing the slow units to catch up. Ideally, you should spot the force moving out right when it leaves the Protoss' entrance. A zergling will sit outside of their entrance to watch for the attack, and sacrifice it's life for the swarm to give you vision. Move your hydralisks forward into position and get ready for them to attack. If they don't attack, don't force an engagement, but wait for more units to be morphed, and for your lurkers.

Did I mention you want to get lurkers enough times? You need lurkers. Be patient and don't engage if it's not necessary.


2.




Engage the Protoss force in an arc, but the engagement should be brief, because psi storms will be coming down on your units if they stay there longer than a few seconds. You want to 'dodge' the storms by pulling your forces away.


3.




Try not to retreat in one big ball, because if you accidentally run into a dead-end, all the hydralisks will die. If you've macro'd up another round of units, then you should be in good shape to stop this attack. Retreat all your groups to different spots on the mini-map, fanning outward, so that when your reinforcements flood into the area, your groups can move back in and surround the Protoss army.

Don't morph lurkers during the fighting, because you'll need all your units available to fight. Your reinforcements should consist mostly of zerglings if the Protoss army is dragoon-heavy, but should be about 50% hydralisks if their army is very zealot-heavy. Start boxing your extra units from the far-away expansion and quickly send all those forces into the area where the fighting is happening. Get your closer reinforcements running to the battle, and then 1a2a3a4a your hydralisks back into the fight. Now that the attack has been broken, morph your hydralisks into lurkers.

The object of any big battle is to decisively smash your opponent's standing army, but keep in mind, StarCraft isn't just about engaging your opponent in one huge showdown. You need to maximize your advantages, including (but not limited to) superior numbers, superior economy, superior upgrades, superior tech units and so on, while minimizing your opponent's advantages by systematically denying them opportunities to build themselves up, and in Zerg vs Protoss, a big part of this is stopping the Protoss from getting their third and fourth bases at will. You want to make it a pain in the ass for the Protoss to take their bases. Some maps like Fighting Spirit and Jade have an 'easy access' third base where it's very difficult to deny a third base for your opponent. Nothing to worry about though - just concentrate on stopping a fourth and fifth.

Keeping this in mind is more important than prepping for one big battle, otherwise, when the big battle presents itself, you might not be in a position to win it, and will spend the rest of the match trying to play catch-up with your opponent.

Well anyhow, that's my official disclaimer on the big battle. But screw that for now. Let's just break this down into bite-size chunks. First, you will need the following:

Lurkers - Since lurkers are invincible against ranged attacks while burrowed and under dark swarm, they present a huge problem for Protoss and a unique opportunity for you because they will not only negate the firepower of dragoons and archons, but also will rip apart zealots and dark templar, perhaps even a reaver that has lost it's shuttle.

Cracklings - Zerglings with the adrenaline gland upgrade are great when you can send waves and waves of them against the Protoss.

Ultralisk/Defiler - You need one or the other, preferably defiler.

Hydralisks and Overlords - Especially if there are corsairs present, you'll want hydralisks to protect your overlords so they can spot dark templar. If you plague dark templar with a defiler, the DTs will become visible as long as the plague persists. You absolutely cannot engage a Protoss army until the cloak of an arbiter without overlords.

Spotter - You need some kind of scouting unit to get an idea of where the Protoss army is, and where it's going. The Protoss army, if it's staying together in one blob, will be moving relatively slowly, and usually once you engage, the Protoss will not attempt to retreat.


1.




Your opponent's army can take a variety of paths. Find a few key areas that you can scout to see where they're moving. Any time they move to move to your half of the map (which is more like 2/3rds of the map) or move to expand, you need to see it, and then start moving your main groups (1,2,3,4) to position to create an arc or surround.


2.




Once your main forces are in position, begin boxing and sending your smaller units from your rally points, starting from whichever rally point is further away from the fighting. Do this quickly so all your units can all hit at once, though. Once the those boxed units are moving along, send in your big units first, such as ultralisks and lurkers (don't try to a-move lurkers, they will just sit there), then your hydralisk/zergling groups in.


3.

If you win the fight, go kill your opponent's bases. You should target their newest bases first, which will be fresh with new resources for the Protoss, and you want to cut them off from their income.

If the fight goes completely wrong, SAVE YOUR ULTRALISKS. If all the smaller units are dead, don't let the ultralisks just stay in the fray and get killed. Retreat them back to a safe location until you have enough small units and more ultralisks to support them.

If you have a large hydralisk army, only put dark swarm over your lurkers. Putting dark swarm over your hydralisks or on top of your enemy's army will only hurt you, because any unit under dark swarm is invulnerable to ranged attacks, including enemy units. If your army is mostly melee units + lurkers, you can put dark swarm anywhere you please. Order to the defilers to poof down the dark swarms only after your melee units make contact with the enemy. If you do the dark swarm beforehand, the Protoss will simply retreat out of the dark swarm, and it will be wasted.

Plague should always be used if your enemy has large numbers of reavers, and/or corsair + dark templar.

For much of the early game and mid game, you'll have to keep your defence in mind, because it's very difficult to play Protoss defensively, so they want to attack you early so that they won't have to scramble to defend later on in the game. Some Protoss players prefer playing defensively, but most don't, so they will employ a variety of timing attacks to hurt you. Much of your defence will rely on your simcity, scouting, and simply building units, but there are a few very important concepts that will really help you defence.

Drone drill

Any kind of worker drill is a pathing glitch[?] that changes the units' movement AI so that they can float over other units. Normally, if a number of units are in the way of a drone, it will try to find a way around the blocking units to find a way to its destination. However, if you right-click on a mineral patch that you have vision of, or an extractor, the drone will just "float" over the units blocking its path. If a bunch of drones are mining, then you select them all, and send them to one mineral patch, they will all float to that mineral patch. If the mineral patch is in the mineral field they're mining from, all of the drones will stack onto one spot and then resume mining. If you give them the command to "stop" before they resume mining, what will happen is they will all start glitching out to spread out, because the normal ground unit AI dictates that two units cannot occupy the same spot. The worker stack AI (and burrow AI) allows you to stack a lot of ground units into one spot.



In the above example, the drones are being from the natural to the main to block the zealots from reaching the sunken colonies. As you can see, some of the zealots have already made contact with the sunken colonies, however, that's where this glitch comes in handy. If you order the stacked drones to a-move, they will attack while glitching out. The zealots will also glitch out and will be "pushed" away from the sunken colonies.

If you cannot stop your opponent from reaching your defenses with your army units, always use the drone drill unless:

Your opponent has a gigantic army and you would be better off saving the drones and losing the base. This only comes into play late in the game.
If your opponent attacks with reavers, archons, or high templar. If any of these attack, get the drones away from them and DO NOT stack the drones. These units have high splash damage, and can kill all of your drones really fast if you stack them on top of each other.


Observer snipe (lurker defense)

If you are defending an area with a lurker field, you need to give the lurkers support from buildings and other units, otherwise, the Protoss will break through them. If say, you set up a position in the open where you can't build a hatchery, the Protoss might be able to just muscle their way through the lurkers if you have no defilers yet. However, when defending your home bases, you can (and should) back the lurkers up with sunken colonies, and spore colonies. Why spore colonies? For two reasons - spore colonies can detect cloaked units, and are much more durable than overlords. Additionally, since an observer has very little shields/health, they can easily be shot down by a spore colony. For this reason, the Protoss player may decide to stall their attack and slowly break down your defence by first using psi storm on the lurkers in front, then using dragoons to kill your spore colony, then pushing in with the rest of their army.

It only takes 1 scourge to kill an observer, and you can kill multiple observers by Cloning the scourge 1 by 1 and sending them into the observers. Of course, you'll also need overlords to spot the observers, so you may want to group your overlords with your scourge in one hotkey, then manually select the overlords and send them first (since they are slower, even with speed upgrade), then clone the scourge into the observers and pull the overlords back. The benefit to this technique is that the overlords will be able to detect the cloaked observers, and also absorb some of the hits that might otherwise kill the scourge before they can reach their targets.

Another pretty good technique is to shoot the observer down with hydralisks. You might want to try this one sometime, I hear it's pretty good.

Defensive flank

A defensive flank is basically when the Protoss is piling into one natural with all their forces, and then you surround them from behind as they run up into your defence. To make a defensive flank more effective, do the following:

1) Place more sunken colonies at your front where the Protoss is going to attack. You might need as many as ten, even if you have lurkers, especially if they're doing a 2-base 8-gate push.

2) Select 4 or more groups of units from the faraway natural and send them to the area between both of your naturals. Macro another round of units, and then start boxing units at the faraway expansion and sending them into your natural.

3) Take your groups, and send them around in an arc to flank the incoming Protoss force.

Now, your whole army might actually die, and you'll end up trading evenly with the Protoss. But the objective here is to stop their attack from killing your natural and staying in the game.

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