EPTI'm currently playing a lot of Hunters trying to beat the map with zerg vs 7 CPU. It's not an easy challenge, winning with terran or protoss is a lot easier (mainly with siege tanks or carriers). But I'm sure it's doable with zerg.
The thing that has gotten me every time so far are siege tanks. Combined with all the other assaults and unit compositions like HT, DA, lurkers, air units and general onslaughts it's difficult to hold ground, secure more bases, and most importantly actually push out and destroy enemy bases.
The spoiler part is irrelevant for my thread idea, read only if you care:
+ Show Spoiler +
My strategy right now is to spawn at 11 or 12 (if I get rushed by zerglings or my 11/12 o'clock neighbor is protoss I have to restart), build a proxy hatch to seal off the entrance to both top locations, destroy the neighboring position with zerglings and secure two expansions. I try to keep my sunk count to a neccessary minimum and I get a bunch of lurkers before my defiler tech finishes. I also try to upgrade and replace my proxy hatch to win more time before siege tanks arrive.
Using that tech the next phase is about trying to push out and placing some forward sunkens and spores, while also putting some defensive measures at each base. The rest of the game should be all about killing enemy bases as quickly as possible using classic late game zerg strats.
This strategy looks to be the most promising so far. I'm quite confident it should work.
Using that tech the next phase is about trying to push out and placing some forward sunkens and spores, while also putting some defensive measures at each base. The rest of the game should be all about killing enemy bases as quickly as possible using classic late game zerg strats.
This strategy looks to be the most promising so far. I'm quite confident it should work.
Unfortunately the last game I lost to DA's because they kept killing my defilers while I was trying to secure the fourth (min only) base. This had me scratching my head because timing is everything. I thought about just keeping my defiler energy low at all times, but that alone doesn't seem efficient enough as a defiler has 80 HP and every spell costs at least 100 energy, so I won't always be able to get the energy significantly below 80, especially with all the multitasking stealing my attention. Sometimes I'm fighting over seconds.
So I had another idea: burrowing my defilers. It'll be ever so slightly more difficult for protoss to feedback them, perhaps giving me that extra second to place a life-saving dark swarm.
And this brought me to the thread idea.
In ZvT, why not use burrow for defilers? We've seen zerg hide their defilers using nydus, a very effective maneuver. They also use spores defensively to zone out vessels a bit. But what about situations where there's no nydus available? I'm imagining burrowing a defiler and putting zerglings on top, for example. Or any other unit. They could be unburrowed or also burrowed with the defiler. If they're unburrowed - at least underneath a dark swarm - the defiler becomes virtually untouchable by vessels unless the unit on top gets killed, e.g. by a siege tank or irradiate. Zerg can use anything from zerglings, drones, hydras, ultras, even overlords or mutalisks, who knows maybe even a lurker could come in handy.
Zerg could perhaps even burrow multiple units over and around a defiler. Let terran try to irradiate the right unit. And then let him try it when they're underneath a dark swarm.
Now I don't think this is a gamebreaking idea, but I think it could add a few wins in the long run. I'm sure if it's a valid idea the top zerg players wouldn't mind eking out just one extra victory against Flash.
PS: Burrow underneath dark swarm would obviously also render the defiler untouchable by siege tanks. I've seen professional games being lost or almost lost due to a defiler getting shot down by siege tanks while under dark swarm. Burrow would prevent that.
