Hi guys! I'm a zerg player, I love watching great defiller plays and i hope to be better at it myself. So there's a few questions i would like to ask and i hope you guys can help mi answer them =D
1)When moving for an attack, should i group my defiller with my other units of just have it alone in a control group?
2)I realize that that if i swarm too early before my units move in, my opponent will move out of the swarm immediately. In that good enough as i have pushed him back a little? Or is there a better timing when i should place my swarm?
Please help answer my questions if you can, i will deeply appreciate your help. Thanks in advance!
I personally group defilers with lings, but I don't feel like you should be having them as an entire keybind just for it. You would normally have 2+ defilers anyway, and you need to click defilers so each one casts swarm as well, so why not group them with other units?
In ZvT you never really just kill the other person's army like in other match ups. In the muta stage (if there is one) you pick apart the army. The lurker stage can push them back but it mostly stalls them, rarely do you flank and try to kill the whole army unless you have to. And in the defiler stage you push them back more easily and T normally runs away, losing a few units. You can also attack T's natural if you can get there.
So really, long answer short, it's fine if your opponent is running away from swarm, in fact, that's what he's supposed to do. There really is no way to stop T from running, marines are far too fast when stimed and will dominate anything that comes out of the swarm that isn't an ultra. Your swarms should be right in front of the terran army. You don't want it actually on top of the T army, it will make it very hard for your units to get into the swarm, especially your fat lurkers. Swarm usually goes up as the the lurkers are getting in range of the marines, if it's earlier than that, then yea, it's too early. If it's going up while the lurkers begin burrowing, it's too late.
1) I like grouping mine with lings as well, because you are usually consuming them anyways. So if you send the control group somewhere there will be zerglings near your defiler to consume when you need.
2) If you can manage to get under the swarm and get some hits off then that is great, but against good Terrans they will have good reaction time, and won't let that happen often. Late game you will often have to just try to push them back into a place where you can fight him without your army melting, so it's good to have 4 or 5 defilers to cast multiple swarms in a row while your ultraling just 1a2a3a's. Mid-game when you are defending the push you are usually going to be aiming to just back him to back off while until you have ultras out.
I'm not a zerg player but I like how zero groups/controls his defilers. He consumes then adds lings to the control group, when casting he presses hotkey+clicks the defiler wireframe icon which is usually the top left one because of the way he sets up the control group. I'm not sure if this is a common technique for zerg because i don't play zerg or watch too many zerg fpvods, here's the fpvod if you want to see it in action at 16:20
1 for lurker, 2-3 for ling with defiler in one of them, maybe 4-6 scourges in the one of the ling groups
and place the defiler in the front of the group because they move slow.
then just find where the army is, set up your army. then 1 right click, 2a3a, then select the defiler and swarm, then 1 burrow. once u push the army back, consume some lings and repeat. but its more important to be too aggressive.
I group defilers on their own because I've lost too many games where I clicked for swarm then 1a2a3a4a'd and then swarm was never cast because my defiler was in one of those groups. If you can not mess up like me it's probably good to group them with lings.
1) yes, I group them in hotkey 1, with lings :}, I never bring more than 2 to the attack. 2) when I'm near my opponent (like 2 nexus'es away from him), I send all my ling groups to attack that place behind my opp army, I order defiler to swarm in front of his rines/zealots, and then run in with lurkers, if he tries to engage, the swarm I ordered immediatly goes down there, and he loses some of his mnm, he he runs, I click my defiler group to run after, which makes it cancel the swarm command, and chase him till he gets contain in one of his bases or tries to move to some side and counter one of my bases, in which case I just swarm his natural and destroy nat+main . Defilers imba! :D
so if you just group your defiler with lings the icon will always be in the same spot? that's great, I've been trying to work on my defiler play and I hate spending time hunting for the icon ^^ thanks for the fpvod!
Make sure.. you hotkey them the same hotkey everytime with lings.. So.. if you group them as 1.. after casting a dark swarm you can just 1a click so that it doesnt sit there out of range for your next darkswarm/plague if upgraded energy.
1. Don't group your defiler with other attacking units, unless you can keep track of it and make sure it doesn't suicide into enemy fire
2. When you're about to swarm, make sure its never before your other units are in range of the enemy units. It could even be good to lure some units for the enemy units to shoot at, then swarm and go in.
Remember, if you have confidence and play with a certain determination, it will all come easy and you will be able to figure these logically obvious things out quickly. Just don't be too nervous, and stay calm and you should be able to pull things off pretty smoothly
I'm gonna start hotkeying them with lings, up until now I've had them on their own hotkey. Problem with this is that it takes up a full slot, as well as putting all your defilers right next to each other. If I'm against a good terran they can snipe the defilers pretty easily, as opposed to when you put them separately with lings. Consuming is would also be easier it seems. I have terrible defiler play, but it's something everyone needs to work on and will take a lot of practice to get good at.
1) group them with lings 2) Know what your goal is, your swarms achieve that goal. My advice is to set getting a 4th base as your only goal with defiler play. Then defend with defilers while teching to ultra, then get a 5th. This is a good way to get used to mid-late game zvt.
On March 24 2010 04:29 FortuneSyn wrote: It's defiler, not defiller
1) group them with lings 2) Know what your goal is, your swarms achieve that goal. My advice is to set getting a 4th base as your only goal with defiler play. Then defend with defilers while teching to ultra, then get a 5th. This is a good way to get used to mid-late game zvt.
this.
don't try to wipe out the terran army on the map. just defend and stay near your base.
also preemptive swarm is good, lings around the map and as soon as you see an army moving toward your base, put down a swarm and get scourges ready to snipe vessels that comes near.
and once you have plague and is waiting for ultras to come out, group your defiler with a ling then run in to plague.
Most definitely do not group them with other units.
You want to use them just like you would use mass Queen to mass brood 6-10 multiple units at the same time.Simply group your defilers together then hold shift (continuously) + w + left click spot on big map + deselect one defiler (que box) + w + left click map, etc. It's a sexy way to drop down 6-8 swarms and completely cover your opponent.
With practice in deselecting you'll find out which defilers are which and can appropriately keep them in the best position to lay down the most efficient swarms. I.E., if you have 4 defilers in a group you wouldn't want to have your trail defiler cast a swarm in one of your initial target spots. Plus, knowing which defiler is which (in the que box) just allows for better micro. When plaguing simply grab the closest defiler and do your business.
On side note:
don't try to wipe out the terran army on the map. just defend and stay near your base.
I prefer a more macro oriented approach with more Hats before Hive (usually 7), using lurker/ling this way your not dependent on survival to Hive before you can effectively fight vs Terran.
also preemptive swarm is good, lings around the map and as soon as you see an army moving toward your base, put down a swarm and get scourges ready to snipe vessels that comes near.
Late game you can also use overlords to transport your defilers so they can't get irradiated. Don't forget to use plague and a few muta to kill off vessels.
To really rub it in, drop a control group of lings in his main while simultaneously dropping 2 defilers, a few lings/lurk/hydra at his expo and plague the CC and scvs while simultaneously throwing down a swarm. Have a queen ready to infest the CC. So the scvs can't repair the CC because they are plagued and will instantly die to any ling/lurk. If the scvs do run you'll get a few of them while also infesting or killing the CC. It's purely evil.
Take 4-8 Zerglings and right click them to the Defiler. Keep these Zerglings out of any control group. Now your Defiler always has food following him around! ^.^
Take 4-8 Zerglings and right click them to the Defiler. Keep these Zerglings out of any control group. Now your Defiler always has food following him around! ^.^
Poor zerglings ;(. On a serious note: woah, how come I didn't come up with this! :D Thx .
On March 25 2010 02:50 11B wrote: Most definitely do not group them with other units. [...] Simply group your defilers together then hold shift (continuously) + w + left click spot on big map + deselect one defiler (que box) + w + left click map, etc. It's a sexy way to drop down 6-8 swarms and completely cover your opponent.
I am skeptical.
First, putting your defilers into one group means you cannot split your forces into 2 or more groups with defiler support (e.g., expo raid, flanking...).
Second, it means when you reposition your army, all grouped defilers will clump togther (unless you separately micro them into new positions), and thus easier targets for Irradiate.
Thirdly, 6-8 swarms seem unrealistic, what for? I never see a progamer dropping so many swarms, except on different fronts, and even then it's a smaller number.
First, putting your defilers into one group means you cannot split your forces into 2 or more groups with defiler support (e.g., expo raid, flanking...).
For small raids simply group them with a few units. For your main push shift and mass swarm.
Second, it means when you reposition your army, all grouped defilers will clump togther (unless you separately micro them into new positions), and thus easier targets for Irradiate.
Already covered this above.
Thirdly, 6-8 swarms seem unrealistic, what for? I never see a progamer dropping so many swarms, except on different fronts, and even then it's a smaller number.
I've seen plenty of non progamers do it, myself included. My apm and unit control isn't as precise as there's so shift clicking lets me do the work before I get to my spot while enabling mass swarm. It makes for a much easier push and lets you micro in other places. Once again, just like using queens and it's a similar process to consuming multiple lings with one quick command.
EPT
. Defilers imba! :D
