[G] ZvT Overlord Positioning, Scouting

The crux of successful Zerg play teeters on knowing when to make enough defenses to fend off an incoming attack and knowing when it's safe to make several drones to slowly build momentum in economy. Due to these habits, scouting becomes a key characteristic of Zerg players to properly identify what the opponent is doing, and knowing their army movements. The tactics of overlord positioning and what to look for when scouting with zerglings will help reach those goals and will be explained in the following content.

Day9 once said that if you have a problem, you should think about how an overlord can solve that problem. Strange at first, but the statement makes sense. Overlords have the power of surveying the skies and should be utilized to their full extent, not left and forgotten in a hidden corner of your base.

Other than providing supply, overlords provide map vision and you should spread them around the perimeters of your bases and in air space around the map. Overlords will spot several things including dropships that hug the edge of the map thinking they're being super covert and the movement of marine medic.

The roles of overlords change and are quickly prioritized as more overlords are created with which to expend. Some of these roles include muta stacking, spotting a bunker rush, and more that will be covered in depth. To review the migration patterns of the ominous overlord and their quizzical ways, I'll be taking a look at some of the pro zerg players' games illustrating overlord movements on the minimap. Overlords are labelled numerically in the order they spawned.

When Zerg moves an overlord elsewhere, commonly another overlord will take its former position. Overlords will usually be moved from their position if there is another overlord to replace its previous position so basically whenever an overlord spawns, that is when a zerg has the cue to start moving another overlord into another position.

Zerg players will go back to their hatcheries when they hear certain sound effects of units finishing to know to rally workers or pay attention to overlords.

Overlords will move in a square pattern bordering around the edges of the map rather than diagonal to avoid marine snipes

Zerg players will keep constant vigil of movement on the minimap with zerglings and overlords. Zerg players will move zerglings to safety the instant they see movement on the minimap.

For moving overlords, the minimap is used for quickness.

Have two overlords overlooking each natural ridge.

Try to have overlords in a forward position towards opponent to scout dropships sooner, possibly even two overlords over their natural ridge. Zerglings can be placed along edges of the map.

Do not immediately send 1st overlord to the natural base of Terran after learning Terran is cross positions. Terran players will check when they have 4-5 marines out on the field.

Map: Fighting Spirit


Overlord number one is sent in the clockwise direction to the natural. This is the quickest route to the natural of a spawning location and is the safest for the overlord to prevent itself from getting killed from an 8 rax. If it were to scout counterclockwise it would be vulnerable to 8 rax marines. Overlord number 2 is sent to the natural around the ridge to spot for a bunker rush while at the same time is safe from getting sniped.




Between 3:48-3:50 a quick selection of Overlords is made. Effort sends Overlord 2 to the top right ridge and sends the just now spawning Overlord 3 to take Overlord 2's previous spot.




Between 5:00-5:20, Effort sends Overlord 2 to the top left ridge. Overlord 3 takes Overlord 2's previous spot at the top right ridge. The very instant Overlord 4 spawns, Effort starts to move his Overlords to new locations. Overlord 4 takes over Overlord 3's location. By the time Overlord 2 arrived to the top right location it was constantly moving. By the time it reached near the top right ridge, Overlord 4 ended up spawning in a series of good timing. Overlord 2 is constantly on the move never stopping to rest. The overall pattern begins to take a square formation.

5:25-5:28 Effort moves Overlord 1 down a bit to spot for a comsat station, possibly to indicate medic timing and stim to know when to start making additional sunkens. He

5:38-5:40 Effort focuses on Overlord 1's vision confirming the presence of medics.

6:20-6:25 Effort again notices movement near Overlord 1. He sees reinforcing marines which prompts him to create up to 3 sunkens.




6:25-6:30 Effort sends Overlord 5, 6, and 7 as they spawn to the very bottom right corner for the purpose of mutalisk stacking.

Beyond this point it seems as though Overlord placement is more flexible.

The succeeding overlords are piled down below where overlord 5 and 6 were put down. Only until 11:38 does Effort use 3 just spawning Overlords to line the perimeter of his base, one on the bottom left, one on the top right, and one midway between the two. I think you could send two of the succeeding overlords to your would be 3rd base to line the perimeter. I have seen Zero do this before.

At 11:36 he relies on 4 zerglings to cover for dropships at his 3rd base. Sometimes players will place 2 overlords there ahead of time.

14:28, effort loses Overlord 1 to a wraith.

14:40 Effort moved an overlord out of position to detect cloaked wraiths. He replaces this overlord with another.

15:00 Effort lines the outer perimeter of the top right with lings.

Note: Hiya is doing a lot of drop aggression with 4 dropship attacks so the overlord vision is even more important.

15:15 Effort moves the overlords into a more forward position closer to his opponent's natural. He again replaces positions with other overlords

17:30 Notice Effort's overlord vision at the bottom right. Very expansive There isn't a single slither of a fog of war.

19:18 moves overlord to top left, uses another overlord to replace its former position.

The following pattern of Overlord movements is consistent throughout Effort's games.

In this game Effort spawns in the bottom left and the Terran spawns in the bottom right. Due to the spawn locations Effort's first overlord which scouts clockwise will not be arriving to his Terran opponent's natural. The overlord timings and movements are synonymous with the game Effort had with Hiya, except this time the Overlords move in a square going clockwise rather than counterclockwise.

2:20-2:25 Effort scouts that Terran is counterclockwise to his own spawning location. Upon learning this he moves Overlord 1 to the top right. He subsequently moves Overlord 2 to the bottom right ridge part between Star's main and natural 3rd base.

3:48, overlord 3 spawns, is placed at natural. I think it could have been placed at the top left ridge. At the time Hiya was active with 4-5 marines on the map so Effort may have been more hesitant to move the overlords out.

5:00-5:20 Effort moves Overlord 3 and 4 to the top left.

6:25 Effort splits up the overlords, one to to the top left and another to the top right. Overlord 1 that spawned in the beginning of the game makes its way to Hiya's natural.

11:12 overlord that spawned from 3rd base hatchery placed along perimeter of 3rd base.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOF_U-7l_lA
Larva in this game spawns counterclockwise to Mind. He follows the same scouting pattern as Effort in Effort vs. Star_LT. He does eventually send an overlord to Mind's natural with overlord 1 but does not replace the top left overlord.


Overlords 5, 6, and 7 spawning around 6:20 are moved to the bottom left cross positions from the Terran so the travel distance will be longer and Larva can spend a longer time before switching overlords?

8:30-8:40Larva places 2 lings in the natural 3rd of mind, presumably to scout drops when he has one group of lings and mutalisks out on the field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5XKlGaiT0
This game is different from the others because both players spawn cross positions.

First overlord is sent clockwise. When Effort's scouting drone encounters the Terran scouting SCV, he realizes Terran is cross positions. Once he realizes this, he starts to move his overlord above the ridge between the natural 3rd and main base of the top left.

Overlord 2 is sent to natural ridge of top left base.

4:40 Effort has a full group of lings on the field and sends Overlord 3 to bottom right natural ridge. He sends overlord 1 in the top leftish to Ssak's natural. Maybe Effort only moves the overlords because they have the security of his zerglings? Effort does do an aggressive attack and ling runby.

Overlord 5, 6, 7 are mutalisk stacking overlords.

10:20 sends two overlords to bottom right