On July 28 2016 00:24 B-royal wrote: What does a late mech switch lack?
- vessels - solid anti-air
What does mech have a lot? Mines and tanks.
What's the answer to both? Guardians (and to a lesser extent hydralisks and lurkers).
In my noob opinion I think saving mutas and morphing them into guardians will be key. Like other people have explained, zerg is teching up and getting a solid economy while terran is switching to mech and expanding behind map control based mainly on Marine/Medic/Vessel/some tanks and early(ier) mines.
A group of guardians could be used to attack the third and/or prevent the 4th (new main) from terran. Often terran players only have a group of marine medic to defend their 4th before the factories at this location go up. At this moment terrans tend to have a lot of vultures with mines that prevent ground attacks but will do nothing against guardians. They also only have 1 starport with a couple of vessels (any additional gas has gone into vulture upgrades, armory and extra factories).
Then I think zerg's will have to incorportate hydralisks to clean up large mine fields and to actually be able to kill a CC instead of just forcing it to lift. Hydralisks will allow us to expand easier to a 5th and 6th by preventing a single group of vultures from precluding this. The lack of vessels can be abused by lurkers under dark swarm, to defend key positions with minimal costs. Queens are solid but only in the latest stages of the game to lift up sieges and to effectively break a position like the 4th/5th that's defended by too many tanks, mines and turrets.
We as zergs need to abuse the fact that terrans don't have effective anti-air (when they're switching) and don't spend a lot of gas on vessels. We need to use units that can clean up mine fields rapidly and cost-efficiently, which is in my opinion the hydralisk as zerglings are only useful if there are no vultures nearby.
Drops aren't that useful because they are very expensive for the zerg and can't be rushed. A lot of terrans also have walls of turrets ready at their 4th while dropping at a third most often is to conspicuous.
From the Jaedong thread that I'm arguing for guardians, Modesty shows us that guardians have viable builds and can be extremely successful.
Effort has been playing with guardians and even mutalisk switches since he came back with some success, but it seems it's not universal. Last also uses 2port into mech sometimes
There's a huge difference between catching people off guard, and having a go-to strategy that will work despite the fact people know it's coming. The most annoying thing about late-mech is that it has no clear weaknesses even though everyone is trying their hardest to overcome it.
The use of zerg air units has always fucked up the mech composition if the terran starts out with mech, even if the terran knows in advance that it is coming. However, with late-mech, it's much more of a gamble, and it kind of depends on the terran fucking up, as any good terran will make mince meat out of the air transition if they know it's coming in advance. The use of efficient drops with basic units to store up the gas to transition into the do-or-die ultralisk push before the terran mech upgrades kick in, is probably the best method, and works to a degree even though terrans know it's coming in advance.
That's the solution we're looking for here. Shit that works, and not depending on your opponent being caught with their pants down. Stuff like fast command centre into 1+ attack upgrade doesn't work because the zerg didn't expect the greedy build, it works because zergs find it hard to punish its greed, and has been best countered with the three hatchery play. We're looking for safe, sound counters for the late-mech, and I don't think the use of air units is necessarily the answer because it's not an efficient use of gas like it is against traditional mech, and can be countered extremely easily if the terrans are wise to it. Yes, it can work, and zergs should look for timing windows for a surprise air switch to keep the terrans honest, but I don't think it works as the bread and butter style of play that counters late mech.
I'm not claiming to be very knowledgeable but hear me out.
Around 12 minutes in the game is when the mech switch starts to fully flesh out, vultures have both upgrades and terran has invested in an armory and into getting extra factories. Let's assume terran went for 1 starport only. At this point terran has 2-3 vessels maximally. He's taking his close third and most likely a 4th at another main.
Zerg should be in the process of getting his 4th gas.
Now how can zerg possibly put any efficient pressure on the terran? Vultures and spider mines are really good at preventing ground attacks. A group of marine medic can protect the 4th from any mutalisk threat.
I propose this:
1. Zerg scouts how many starports terran has during the mutalisk phase, if only 1 proceed to next step. 2. Zerg tries to conserve his mutalisks as much as possible. 3. Zerg morphs a greater spire around 10-11 minutes.
Now there is a threat of guardians, either terran scouts it or he doesn't. Let's say he doesn't scout it.
4. Zerg morphs guardians over a cliff to either attack the third or 4th of the terran. Zerg has scourge nearby to prevent wraiths and vessels from killing them. Most likely terran only has a control group of marine medic at this position and possibly a lot of vulture mines to prevent ground attacks.
5. This delays terran's 4th gas and forces out more vessels and goliaths, which means less tanks.
Now let's assume terran scouts the greater spire and he prepares by any of the next measures:
- more vessels - goliaths - wraiths
Zerg should try to scout this and now he doesn't morph any guardians. Terran has spent resources trying to defend against an attack that never came. There are now less tanks on the field.
I understand it's pure theorycrafting and I might be misunderstanding what terran can do against this. But that's why I'm here, to get educated. Right now, I still believe zerg's should experiment with this to try to delay terran's expansions. I just don't think an ultralisk "all-in" or having to end the game before a certain period of time sounds very fun at all. Brood war is supposed to be the ultimate game, where any opponent can win late game by being the better player and having better mechanics.
On July 29 2016 06:49 B-royal wrote: I'm not claiming to be very knowledgeable but hear me out.
Around 12 minutes in the game is when the mech switch starts to fully flesh out, vultures have both upgrades and terran has invested in an armory and into getting extra factories. Let's assume terran went for 1 starport only. At this point terran has 2-3 vessels maximally. He's taking his close third and most likely a 4th at another main.
Zerg should be in the process of getting his 4th gas.
Now how can zerg possibly put any efficient pressure on the terran? Vultures and spider mines are really good at preventing ground attacks. A group of marine medic can protect the 4th from any mutalisk threat.
I propose this:
1. Zerg scouts how many starports terran has during the mutalisk phase, if only 1 proceed to next step. 2. Zerg tries to conserve his mutalisks as much as possible. 3. Zerg morphs a greater spire around 10-11 minutes.
Now there is a threat of guardians, either terran scouts it or he doesn't. Let's say he doesn't scout it.
4. Zerg morphs guardians over a cliff to either attack the third or 4th of the terran. Zerg has scourge nearby to prevent wraiths and vessels from killing them. Most likely terran only has a control group of marine medic at this position and possibly a lot of vulture mines to prevent ground attacks.
5. This delays terran's 4th gas and forces out more vessels and goliaths, which means less tanks.
Now let's assume terran scouts the greater spire and he prepares by any of the next measures:
- more vessels - goliaths - wraiths
Zerg should try to scout this and now he doesn't morph any guardians. Terran has spent resources trying to defend against an attack that never came. There are now less tanks on the field.
I understand it's pure theorycrafting and I might be misunderstanding what terran can do against this. But that's why I'm here, to get educated. Right now, I still believe zerg's should experiment with this to try to delay terran's expansions. I just don't think an ultralisk "all-in" or having to end the game before a certain period of time sounds very fun at all. Brood war is supposed to be the ultimate game, where any opponent can win late game by being the better player and having better mechanics.
I agree on principle that the use of greater spire can be utilized to a great extent if terran lacks the ability to map hack with scanners. I've heard Flash discuss with Mong about EffOrt's frequent use of guardians, and said it's of the utmost importance to keep checking the timing of the zerg's greater spire, and the need to make wraiths accordingly, and that even if the zerg just "fakes" the greater spire transition without actually committing to guardians, the preemptive production cost and the cost of upgrading to greater spire more or less evens out. The terran can just keep checking the zerg's composition from multiple scans, and have cost efficient answers for it, and guardians become cost inefficient if the terran prepares properly for it in advance.
I think the use of guardians against late-mech is mainly for punishing negligent terran players, and a way to keep diligent terran players honest, but not really the answer that would work every single time against strategically sound terran players.
On July 29 2016 06:49 B-royal wrote: I'm not claiming to be very knowledgeable but hear me out.
Around 12 minutes in the game is when the mech switch starts to fully flesh out, vultures have both upgrades and terran has invested in an armory and into getting extra factories. Let's assume terran went for 1 starport only. At this point terran has 2-3 vessels maximally. He's taking his close third and most likely a 4th at another main.
Zerg should be in the process of getting his 4th gas.
Now how can zerg possibly put any efficient pressure on the terran? Vultures and spider mines are really good at preventing ground attacks. A group of marine medic can protect the 4th from any mutalisk threat.
I propose this:
1. Zerg scouts how many starports terran has during the mutalisk phase, if only 1 proceed to next step. 2. Zerg tries to conserve his mutalisks as much as possible. 3. Zerg morphs a greater spire around 10-11 minutes.
Now there is a threat of guardians, either terran scouts it or he doesn't. Let's say he doesn't scout it.
4. Zerg morphs guardians over a cliff to either attack the third or 4th of the terran. Zerg has scourge nearby to prevent wraiths and vessels from killing them. Most likely terran only has a control group of marine medic at this position and possibly a lot of vulture mines to prevent ground attacks.
5. This delays terran's 4th gas and forces out more vessels and goliaths, which means less tanks.
Now let's assume terran scouts the greater spire and he prepares by any of the next measures:
- more vessels - goliaths - wraiths
Zerg should try to scout this and now he doesn't morph any guardians. Terran has spent resources trying to defend against an attack that never came. There are now less tanks on the field.
I understand it's pure theorycrafting and I might be misunderstanding what terran can do against this. But that's why I'm here, to get educated. Right now, I still believe zerg's should experiment with this to try to delay terran's expansions. I just don't think an ultralisk "all-in" or having to end the game before a certain period of time sounds very fun at all. Brood war is supposed to be the ultimate game, where any opponent can win late game by being the better player and having better mechanics.
Watch this game
Ver even did a writeup on it which saves me the trouble.
I thought this recent game of Mong vs Hero (starts at 1:44:05) was a good example of how to play against mech. Drops at the 4th and main to constantly disrupt the Terran economy. If the Zerg just lets Terran set up 5 bases with no contest it's just an uphill battle from there. Even if Terran knows you are going for drops he can't possibly cover all his bases, macro and lay mines everywhere at the same time. Understand that the overlord upgrades are expensive, but Zerg needs to get them sooner or later anyway.
On July 29 2016 06:49 B-royal wrote: I'm not claiming to be very knowledgeable but hear me out.
Around 12 minutes in the game is when the mech switch starts to fully flesh out, vultures have both upgrades and terran has invested in an armory and into getting extra factories. Let's assume terran went for 1 starport only. At this point terran has 2-3 vessels maximally. He's taking his close third and most likely a 4th at another main.
Zerg should be in the process of getting his 4th gas.
Now how can zerg possibly put any efficient pressure on the terran? Vultures and spider mines are really good at preventing ground attacks. A group of marine medic can protect the 4th from any mutalisk threat.
I propose this:
1. Zerg scouts how many starports terran has during the mutalisk phase, if only 1 proceed to next step. 2. Zerg tries to conserve his mutalisks as much as possible. 3. Zerg morphs a greater spire around 10-11 minutes.
Now there is a threat of guardians, either terran scouts it or he doesn't. Let's say he doesn't scout it.
4. Zerg morphs guardians over a cliff to either attack the third or 4th of the terran. Zerg has scourge nearby to prevent wraiths and vessels from killing them. Most likely terran only has a control group of marine medic at this position and possibly a lot of vulture mines to prevent ground attacks.
5. This delays terran's 4th gas and forces out more vessels and goliaths, which means less tanks.
Now let's assume terran scouts the greater spire and he prepares by any of the next measures:
- more vessels - goliaths - wraiths
Zerg should try to scout this and now he doesn't morph any guardians. Terran has spent resources trying to defend against an attack that never came. There are now less tanks on the field.
I understand it's pure theorycrafting and I might be misunderstanding what terran can do against this. But that's why I'm here, to get educated. Right now, I still believe zerg's should experiment with this to try to delay terran's expansions. I just don't think an ultralisk "all-in" or having to end the game before a certain period of time sounds very fun at all. Brood war is supposed to be the ultimate game, where any opponent can win late game by being the better player and having better mechanics.
This just doesnt seem to work in pro scene. Pros will just constantly make MnM to fend off guardians. Additionally, its extremely hard to conserve mutas up until late mech starts rolling in because terrans are so good at trying to reduce number of mutas while they are aiming for zerg's third. 4/5 barrack +1 weapon is op as hell because of that. Flash mentioned that best thing a zerg can do vs late mech is to get a third without losing huge economic resources such as pumping 20-30+ lings. Flash said that jaedong did this beautifully and also wrecked terran's economy by devastating 20-30 marines with insane muta control with some lings. So jaedong always started out ahead like 6:4 because by doing this jaedong can take 4th extremely fast and get ultras really quickly. Flash also mentions that guardians/muta switch are HORRIBLE.
On July 29 2016 06:49 B-royal wrote: I'm not claiming to be very knowledgeable but hear me out.
Around 12 minutes in the game is when the mech switch starts to fully flesh out, vultures have both upgrades and terran has invested in an armory and into getting extra factories. Let's assume terran went for 1 starport only. At this point terran has 2-3 vessels maximally. He's taking his close third and most likely a 4th at another main.
Zerg should be in the process of getting his 4th gas.
Now how can zerg possibly put any efficient pressure on the terran? Vultures and spider mines are really good at preventing ground attacks. A group of marine medic can protect the 4th from any mutalisk threat.
I propose this:
1. Zerg scouts how many starports terran has during the mutalisk phase, if only 1 proceed to next step. 2. Zerg tries to conserve his mutalisks as much as possible. 3. Zerg morphs a greater spire around 10-11 minutes.
Now there is a threat of guardians, either terran scouts it or he doesn't. Let's say he doesn't scout it.
4. Zerg morphs guardians over a cliff to either attack the third or 4th of the terran. Zerg has scourge nearby to prevent wraiths and vessels from killing them. Most likely terran only has a control group of marine medic at this position and possibly a lot of vulture mines to prevent ground attacks.
5. This delays terran's 4th gas and forces out more vessels and goliaths, which means less tanks.
Now let's assume terran scouts the greater spire and he prepares by any of the next measures:
- more vessels - goliaths - wraiths
Zerg should try to scout this and now he doesn't morph any guardians. Terran has spent resources trying to defend against an attack that never came. There are now less tanks on the field.
I understand it's pure theorycrafting and I might be misunderstanding what terran can do against this. But that's why I'm here, to get educated. Right now, I still believe zerg's should experiment with this to try to delay terran's expansions. I just don't think an ultralisk "all-in" or having to end the game before a certain period of time sounds very fun at all. Brood war is supposed to be the ultimate game, where any opponent can win late game by being the better player and having better mechanics.
so pretty much a zerg player needs to be better than terran player in skills/apm/eapm/physicality/etc to beat him. It requires zergs to do much more than terran
Late game Mutalisk/Guardian switch sounds like a bad idea when Terran already has Science Vessels. Mutalisk without upgrade can't do anything once Terran gets enough Goliaths and Guardians are far too slow and too weak against Vessels.
How about crazy zerg? Midgame becomes riskier, but you have a much stronger footing in lategame. You force terran to build more rax instead so that they can hold this
On August 01 2016 06:28 duke91 wrote: How about crazy zerg? Midgame becomes riskier, but you have a much stronger footing in lategame. You force terran to build more rax instead so that they can hold this
To terrans, crazy zerg seems a "thank you for doing this prehistoric build" I can just build 11 barracks and pummel you to death and make you never build a 4th."
On August 01 2016 06:28 duke91 wrote: How about crazy zerg? Midgame becomes riskier, but you have a much stronger footing in lategame. You force terran to build more rax instead so that they can hold this
To terrans, crazy zerg seems a "thank you for doing this prehistoric build" I can just build 11 barracks and pummel you to death and make you never build a 4th."
Well then good luck dealing with swarm then. If terran goes for 11 rax, you just swarm infinitely and terran can never break your 4th. You have to go mech and with crazy zerg you at least get map control + possible timing to break terran. Either way, you have the opportunity to get ahead
On August 01 2016 06:28 duke91 wrote: How about crazy zerg? Midgame becomes riskier, but you have a much stronger footing in lategame. You force terran to build more rax instead so that they can hold this
To terrans, crazy zerg seems a "thank you for doing this prehistoric build" I can just build 11 barracks and pummel you to death and make you never build a 4th."
Well then good luck dealing with swarm then. If terran goes for 11 rax, you just swarm infinitely and terran can never break your 4th. You have to go mech and with crazy zerg you at least get map control + possible timing to break terran. Either way, you have the opportunity to get ahead
lol there's a reason why zergs never go crazy zergs. Look at match ups from feb to july, they always goin 3 hat muta 99% Of the time and 1% of the time 2 hat muta. Come on man you guys know this better.
You don't know crazy zerg works with 3 hatch muta, right? Actually it is only viable with 3 hatch since you need some eco to pull this off. Crazy zerg is to go standard 3 hatch muta ling, rush carapace and ignore lurkers. examples pure crazyzerg
crazyzerg with guardians
They never go crazy zerg because it is risky mid game to secure 3rd or 4th. However it may force terran to not go mechswitch since any switch would be costly in that it wouldn't secure a third, or simply die to a timing attack due to lack of m&m
Also don't just dismiss my proposal as stupid if all we do is theorycraft.
EPT
