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oops wrong forum, admin change to strategy pls!
ok, whenever I play tvz and z goes swarm I get COMPLETLY SLAUGHTERED, seriously, game is going fine, all is good for me, then z pops up with swarm and its gg. I desperatly need some help vs swarm, like, any help at all, anything at all seriously, I completly suck vs swarm and more zergs are using it now than ever before
here is the game situation :map is luna, Im at 7 he is at 5, I have expo, and have successfully defended my expo from a group of about 8 lurks and some lings , I then send 2 dropships out to kill his expo at 2oclock which is very successfull.
I have macroed my way up to about 2 groups of mnm 3 tanks and a vessel@at expo(no irradiate yet), all of a sudden he attacks my expo with a few lurks + lings and swarm... and basically I lose because of swarm.... HELP PLS !!!!
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there's different ways of dealing with swarm
some terrans get spider mines, some mix in firebats with their marines (depending on how many lings they have) but generally, once they swarm you, you're going to have to move all of your stuff back ASAP out of the cloud of death and then seige your tanks when they are at a safe distance
you should usually target the defilers with your science vessels so that he won't keep consuming and swarming
maybe you lost because you didn't have the right units/spells, or maybe it was because of your micro
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United Kingdom2674 Posts
Moving to strategy forum...
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Irradiate those defilers as fast and often as you can using scan to locate them.
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Is it a viable strategy to upgrade EMP to drain defilers of energy in key moments? I was watching the clinique replay and it seems to me that it's hard for swarm to be very effective unless the zerg can continually drop swarm as he pushes against the terran group. An EMP would severely limit the zerg's ability to drop multiple swarms.
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United States37500 Posts
Unless for some reason Zerg has all his defilers together for you to emp, irridiate > emp all the way. Why drain mana when you can just kill it? Not to mention emp's slower casting rate compared to irridiate and the fairly small radius.
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EMP uses more energy, has a slower casting rate than irradiate, is an additional upgrade which you wouldn't have to research, and defilers have consume
oh and also irradiate kills the defiler 
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i dunno if this is viable but..
there was this game that I played were Z was destroying my containment with swarm lurk lings. I had 3 vessels but for some reason forgot to upgrade irradiate. he was pushing hard and pushing fast so what do I do? I made bats lotsa lotsa bats from my 4 rax when he reached my mineral expo I had 12 bats he swarmed my expo then pushed lurk/ling but 12 bats (6 with D-matrix) 1 med(sole survivor of the containment) owned it all..
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usually there are some ultras in the fray as well
bats can work i guess
the best thing to do is probably just to avoid fighting in swarm, irradiating defilers when at all possible. also, spider mines work surpringly well
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yeah it really depends what kind of units the player has under the swarm for a proper response...
just keep your vessels alive and hit those defilers like the others have said...
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i hate swarm with a passion ><
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it was completly horrible.... i couldnt really micro due to lack of space and he kept making more and more damn swarms forcing me to go up my ramp, and then he just made a swarm there and basicaly all i could do was abandon my position and load the very few marines into dropships and try to win from there, which was just not possible
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
the tradeoff with swarm is its incredibly micro intensive.
a. irrad defilers whenever you see them they become #1 priority.
b. tanks, siege tanks and advance rines ahead, when they swarm at you retreat into tank range and smash the zerg.
c. wraith switch is strong since 90% z's do ling/lurk with defilers making expos and even offensive units vulnerable (this takes advance scouting) and strong economy.
d. run rines into the swarm, this can block them from getting in and kill most of the units before they get to safety.
e. bats, not really great except in small force encounters so dont depend on it.
general note: dont get caught in your base if avoidable. Swarm is a "rape" tactic as i see it, they force you to take it right up the ass by shoving shit in your face via swarm. If you can do the early siege / rine retreat you are in good shape. Also make them work, use drops / irrad and micro a lot, the z has to work his ass off to do well with swarm.
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You need room to fight - if you are in your base and he dark swarms you, you have no hope. The only way to win the game vs defiler is by being constantly aggressive and giving yourself room to move back. If he has to use defiler and dark swarm defensively, you have the advantage, and you can win the war of attrition through constant irradiation and etc. Hence why you should go 2 port vessel vs defiler instead of something like 2fac tank as tanks are ultimately useless in this scenario.
He may also switch to guardians or other hive tech, which also requires vessel (which is good vs all hive builds).
The key mistake that terran makes vs defiler is being too passive - if the zerg has to chase your army, they can't dark swarm nearly as well as when they are storming your natural with lurkerling defiler and you have nowhere to run.
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To OP: you don't even have irradiate yet? How do you expect to win vs any hive? He could have very well just went guardians and you would still lose. Scout better - scout his lair to know when he switches to hive - if he goes 3 base hive then simply add another starport - stop all tank production and just get out vessels.
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On November 15 2005 22:32 greatmeh wrote:
i hate swarm with a passion ><
and likewise, i hate irradiate with a passion, so there goes your answer =P.
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I think you will need a huge cloud of vessels hovering menacingly over the battlefield, irradiating everything in sight :p
Vesselx100=pwnage 
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I think that you must not let zerg have the time to tech so fast to defilers.
Lair-Queens nest-hive-defiler mound-(consume)-defilers. You must have macroed so much that you can get out of you base much earlier. Why not at the same time the expoes is being killed ?
You dont have to kill his main (probably you cant)....just contain and and slow the swarms.
There is nothing I hate more then T just runs of of svarms and you have to eat some lings agian.
But when you get out on open gruond. Then its T time to conquer the battlefield (....huh ?)
1. Sexy thing is to try to time when Z is getting to offensive and lays a swarm kina long away from his troups, is to run under and out from it on the other side and block the units that is trying to get ine the swarm. That is annoying as hell.T kills tons of can kills tons off lurkers if he does right.
Upg is kinda important too.
IMO
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
so far id just take my post for granted O_O
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it's not so easy to stop the Z from getting defilers early as someone said. once there has been some mix up early in the game and the first mm force has been killed and then the T opts for expansion, it's not hard for the z to tech to defilers.
what the T has to do is to get alert of the passive play by the zerg, scan well and once he sees hive and knows the zerg doesn't have mutas, play with 2 port vessels irra. (even if there are mutas you need the second port and probably get a few wraiths to get prepared for guard), tanks from 1 fax and constant pumping of mm force (it's important to not forget the rine grades. if you can afford it from 2 bays. grades are important in case the swarm fight goes on for a lot of time and he can get ultras where rine HAVE to be upgraded as much as possible).
what you need from there on is extensive micro and quick responses, since you have to move your ass away once you see the swarm and try to irradiate as many defilers as possible and as soon as possible. beware of scourges though, it's only good to trade a vessel for irradiating a defiler if he's close to your base. to prevent him from getting a free way into your base with ling/lurk you must avoid as much as you can camping inside your base until you gather a large army. even with a smaller one, move ahead with your mm and try to engage his troops away from your base. force him to spend his swarms there, and not near your cc and irradiate the sneaky fucker. move away of the swarm, siege your tanks (remember that splash dmg can still kill stuf under the swarm. if he makes the mistake to leave unburrowed stuff under the swarm your tanks can kill them AND the burrowed ones who receive the splash) and wait, while scanning to see if any defilers approach to cast another swarm and move ahead with your vessels to irra it. be quick with your responses and don't forget macro!
it's generally hard to defend vs a good zerg which plays swarm nicely. the tricky part for both the zerg and the terran in this scenario is that both of the players have to micro as effectively as they can AND macro so they won't run out of units. but I would place the zergs in a worse position that the Terrans in the swarm play. It's more demading for them. They have to be almost flawless and 100% to execute it effectively.
that's it. I hope I helped
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u can't win when zerg swarm u a lot, LURKERS ARE INVINCIBLE UNDER SWARM !1 way for u to stay alive => mass vessels.. but u'll still get owned by outstanding amount of zerg ground troupes.
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lurkers are not invicible under swarm...
sieged up tanks can eat them up albeit slowly.
also remember that marines, medics and firebats can survive under the swarm as well... so get in the swarm and kill off as many lurkers as u can.
if im wrong slap me. if not stfu.
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burrowed lurkers receive no damage from siege tanks, unless the tanks hit an unburrowed unit that stands on top (or close enough) of the burrowed lurker, so burrowed lurkers will receive the splash.
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*little slap*
Burrowed lurkers don't get hit by tank splash damage.
They only get hurt if they unburrow to move farther so they will deal damage (and some very nice)
Bats and medics only can survive quite decently under lurker spines. Upgraded lurkers tear rines in two shots (moreover rines won't do dmg to units under swarm even if they are inside | swarm do not protect against lurker attack).
You'll need a large pack of frebats and medics to engage a pile of lurkers under swarm.
And you would rather have several groups of mnm (bat-less) irradiate the defilers and wait farther so you can kill anything that goes out of the swarm and/or finish the zergs off when swarms wears off.
Using sieged tanks in packs of ~4 can make him think twice before unburrowing his lurkers and can stall his swarm push nicely.
slap me if i'm wrong somewhere ...
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i would play scorched earth style if they are trying to use swarm. hit them 2 places at once and let wherever they are microing their defilers do whatever, slowing them down when u can spare it, making sure you kill as many defilers as possible. zerg buildings go down fast. if you can take out their defiler mound or pool that will help a great deal. if they already won ANd have swarm of course ur dead, but in most cases if they went swarm cuz they couldn't afford to really win the game any other way, you might be able to win by trading bases with them a few clever times and building elsewhere. i wouldnt try to win against his army head on anywhere he's swarming. kind of like facing lurkers early, you just want to make him work and run away, maybe picking off what you can, but basically he can push you back (with work) but you're slowing him down. the difference is that with defilers, picking them off might be easier, the game is later so you can hit him other places while he's pushing... spread out and multitask, take out his pool first, then defiler mound, and try to stay alive while he thinks he's taking out your only means of production.
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You should always know its coming before he already has defilers, and you do this by constantly scanning his lair to check for when it starts converting to hive(you do that also to check for double evo, or if hes making spire, or a den, or whatever, constantly scanning the zerg mains is a must in tvz, you are given a mini-maphack in a sense so use it).
Best weapon against swarm is keeping the zerg at bay, so when he starts getting swarm you have to be more aggresive in this part than in any other time of the game.
If you have something like 1 factory and 1 starport, make another starport and pump vessels with irradiate.
If you have many tank, like you went 2 factory and they have fast hive or something, you form a big separated line of the tanks, and put your mnm in the front, once they start swarming, you retreat to the next tank and so on.
If you have 2 factory tank however, you still need at least an starport with vessels making irradiate.
If you stay in your base you are as good as dead so go out and keep as aggresive as possible.
There are some cocky terrans who make mines, and thats specially good vs fast defiler and on a map like nostalgia it rocks(for the terran) if used properly, but meh.. suit yourself.
Edit: I play both zvt and tvz and im not a fan of swarm in either matchup, since for me fast swarm in zvt is kind of a do or die strategy, and can only be used properly against crappier terrans than you, and since 70% of the tvzs ive played on pgt were all fast swarms, i got bored with it too.
And yes if you have 300+ apm you can switch to wraith like control said -_-
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^^ thanks guys really appreciate it 
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it's interesting. terran are really the best race for the ol scorched earth tactic but because they get so accustomed to operating out of 1 base, they tend to only be comfortable that way. even late game if you get into a terran base you take out their depots or facs whatever they start crying, and usually this is a vulnerability at some naked point in late game that goes completely overlooked
tvt is the only matchup that teaches terran to be different than that on a regular basis. you can place buildings with a lot more aggression and style and move them, and the same goes for units. well in certain situations in other matchups you can take on this style as well, but most don't. one situation is when they are doing the kind of attack they put a lot of focus in that you can delay, you can meanwhile virtually ensure the win before they know what's going on. it's kind of a reversal of roles. we see the opposite in tvp, t are the ones doing the slow attack while p are aggressive everywhere but running away from the battle as long as possible. if a zerg is going earlier hive and using swarm you become like that protoss, except zerg main is even more vulnerable than the typical terran.
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Mines and tanks > Lurker/ling underswarm
Mines vs ultra/ling however is quite controversal though, friend told me that ultras will kill them before they get to do dmg to them. But then again, a smart zerg would just run one ling through a mine field and destroy all your mines for naught. Hmmm Bunkers/Mines/Sieged tanks :D?
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On November 16 2005 17:07 QuietIdiot wrote:
Mines and tanks > Lurker/ling underswarm
Mines vs ultra/ling however is quite controversal though, friend told me that ultras will kill them before they get to do dmg to them. But then again, a smart zerg would just run one ling through a mine field and destroy all your mines for naught. Hmmm Bunkers/Mines/Sieged tanks :D?
Honestly, I dont get why ppl wont use vulture later on, they sounded so sexy with mines... But it's prabably too risky huh, in case they switch to say... hydra :p
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On November 16 2005 17:07 QuietIdiot wrote:
Mines and tanks > Lurker/ling underswarm
Mines vs ultra/ling however is quite controversal though, friend told me that ultras will kill them before they get to do dmg to them. But then again, a smart zerg would just run one ling through a mine field and destroy all your mines for naught. Hmmm Bunkers/Mines/Sieged tanks :D?
You are missing the most valuable piece of anti-defiler equipment: vessel. The only reason vultures are used in the first place is to free up more gas for 2 port vessel. Bunkers are again, useless due to swarm, and siege tank does minimal damage under swarm as well. The only viable counter to defiler is staying aggressive and forcing him to use swarm defensively as well as Vessel to win the attrition war.
OP, please just read Control's and my posts for information on countering defiler..
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Whenever I go TvZ I always try to mass vessels ass fast as possible. I usually never use tanks unless the opponent starts massing lurks. The only way to win when a zerg gets that powerful late in the game is to win a war of attrition. Once I start massing Vessels the first spell i upgrade is irridate then vessel's energy. The idea here is that Irridate owns all zerg units and is very flexible. If zerg goes swarm and ultro with ling all you do is mass irridate on ultros and defilers if he sends in scrouges use defensive matrix on vessels to absorb damage. If he mass lurks just irridate lurks. If he mass air use irridate in air. If he has expos with anti air use irridate with defensive matrix on your own vessels to kill drones. you wanna drop on a base with lurks spores and sunken defending just use irridate to kill lurks and clear room for drops then use defensive matrix on a marine and send him first so that the sunkens and remaining lurks will fire at him and then just attack and he will lose. If you wanna attack a base that's behind enemy anti air use defensive matrix then go past anti-air and drop. If he is mass scouting with overlords use irridate to kill them and if he again comes with scrouges use defensive matrix. Use irridate to kill queens, defilers, and everything zerg.
One thing to remember is that you should mass vessels, keep building them no matter what. Secoundly since vessels dont cost much minerals just get 6 medics and mass marines. Keep upgrading and take control of islands. Try to avoid big battles unless you know you can win. This strat requires you to have decent micro skills but not too much. And lastly, once you have realized that the map has run out of minerals then you may finish him off with M&M and vessels. Just defend and harrass his expansions using dropships plus vessels for most of the game. You may end up only mining from 1 or 2 expansions the entire game and he may end up with 5 or 6 but that doesnt matter cause eventually he will run out of money and your job is to make that happen even faster with vessels and dropiships.
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greatmeh have u seen this rep?
theres so many swarm attacks done there that maybe something from it could be helpful to u
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yea i watched it, but i watch so many reps i really just see them as a form of entertainment, not to help with my skill, besides, watching reps might give you a idea, but u dont get nearly enouhg info to actually know what the players are doing
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i think a rep is best for teaching if you watch it from 1 point of view and honestly say to yourself what you will do next and try to figure out why they would do something other than what you would have done
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if he commits resources to do something, its ok for you to commit to defend it too !
drops in his main, kill tech, i always hate that... u just gotta be sneaky doing it -.
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EPT
