• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 20:27
CEST 02:27
KST 09:27
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2914Serral wins Maestros of the Game 243ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12
Community News
Weekly Cups (July 27-Aug 2): SHIN's big week0SC4ALL II: Brood War - $2500 - Dec 5-69SC4ALL II announced - $10,000 prize pool, Dec 5-64PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August)14Neeb returns to progaming; rejoins ONSYDE18
StarCraft 2
General
StarCraft 2 at SC4ALL II Invite #4/8 - Percival Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16) Protoss AoE skill expression 5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start) StarCraft 2 at SC4ALL II Invite #3/8 - Clem
Tourneys
Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) Tasteless Time Warp: SC Evo Showmatch (May 25) SC4ALL II announced - $10,000 prize pool, Dec 5-6 RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 537 Hostile Territory Mutation # 536 Railroad Switch Mutation # 535 Assembly of Vengeance
Brood War
General
ASL 22 Proposed Map Pool Recent recommended BW games Making an Online Broodwar Manager Game ASL22 General Discussion [Personal Project Share] Terran Defense v0.60
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues Escore Tournament - Season 3 KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3 SC4ALL II: Brood War - $2500 - Dec 5-6
Strategy
Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Any training maps people recommend? Fighting Spirit mining rates Simple Questions, Simple Answers
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread ZeroSpace Early Access is Now Live! Beyond All Reason
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread The Games Industry And ATVI Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Artificial Intelligence Thread
Fan Clubs
The Clem Fan Club INnoVation Fan Club The Scarlett Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! Series you have seen recently... [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books
Sports
NBA General Discussion Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Formula 1 Discussion MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread Simple Questions Simple Answers FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
What is a Gamer?
TrAiDoS
Hello guys!
LIN1s
ASL S22 English Commentary…
namkraft
Poker (part 2)
Nebuchad
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 8017 users

Hiding Defilers

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
Post a Reply
Crimson)S(hadow
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
Philippines757 Posts
August 25 2023 01:35 GMT
#1
messed around trying to find ways to hide defilers from irradiate, made a quick video on what i found
"It's the end of the BW era which i devoted everything to for 10 years. I tried playing sc2, but my BW memories run too deep; I felt like I was playing an entirely different game" -ToSsGirL
Nirli
Profile Joined February 2023
Bulgaria387 Posts
August 25 2023 14:56 GMT
#2
Might as well burrow them with a pair of lings, one click and done.
Highgamer
Profile Joined October 2015
1470 Posts
Last Edited: 2023-08-25 16:19:15
August 25 2023 16:17 GMT
#3
On August 25 2023 23:56 Nirli wrote:
Might as well burrow them with a pair of lings, one click and done.

If Terran saw it and remembers the units' positions he can still target the burrowed defiler though. And sometimes lings are not present.

But of course: It's a very situational, niche trick. And most Terrans will just spam the command and will lose but 1-2 seconds.

Still, definitelly could create a pimpest play situation if the spam doesn't work - or if a hidden lone defiler suddenly pops up and crashes a sunken-break party at the 4th or something.
MeSaber
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden1235 Posts
August 26 2023 04:49 GMT
#4
Safest is defiler in overlord and an overlord is usually present at all times.

Practicality is another issue.
-.-
Crimson)S(hadow
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
Philippines757 Posts
August 26 2023 05:15 GMT
#5
i just want to normalize more moments like this:


usually you only use 1-2 defilers with your main army, with spares hiding near nydus to run from irradiates. but having spare defilers burrowed & hiding under an antenna seems a lot less APM intensive, especially if terran doesn't even see the burrow hole. for example, i taught the trick to my friend, and when i offrace TvZ against him, even if I know the trick, most of the time i don't even see when he uses it against me.
"It's the end of the BW era which i devoted everything to for 10 years. I tried playing sc2, but my BW memories run too deep; I felt like I was playing an entirely different game" -ToSsGirL
XenOsky
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Chile2358 Posts
August 27 2023 01:59 GMT
#6
why not use overlords like shuttle with high templar.
ἡ τῆς Νεμέσεως τάξις
Ideas
Profile Blog Joined April 2008
United States8174 Posts
Last Edited: 2023-08-27 14:51:37
August 27 2023 14:51 GMT
#7
On August 27 2023 10:59 XenOsky wrote:
why not use overlords like shuttle with high templar.


I would think because the cost of the double upgrade for speed + drop and then overlords can just get irradiated and the splash from that can still kill/damage your defilers and other units.

OP's technique seems APM intensive but potentially really strong. Getting burrow needs to be more normalized in ZvT anyway to counter eraser trick anyway IMO. I hope this makes it's way to the pro scene and see them experiment with it lol
Free Palestine
MeSaber
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden1235 Posts
August 28 2023 07:47 GMT
#8
On August 26 2023 14:15 Crimson)S(hadow wrote:
i just want to normalize more moments like this:
https://youtu.be/nPZJaYTJV8M?feature=shared&t=5

usually you only use 1-2 defilers with your main army, with spares hiding near nydus to run from irradiates. but having spare defilers burrowed & hiding under an antenna seems a lot less APM intensive, especially if terran doesn't even see the burrow hole. for example, i taught the trick to my friend, and when i offrace TvZ against him, even if I know the trick, most of the time i don't even see when he uses it against me.


But the problem there isnt the expansion but rather what you do against dropships. Artosis has the wrong composition and need dropships instead of mass vessels. Vessels are great but dropships have always been the winning factor against a zerg with swarm.

BCs also an option with restoration.
-.-
MeSaber
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden1235 Posts
Last Edited: 2023-08-28 08:11:40
August 28 2023 08:05 GMT
#9
To hide defilers you have some other options. You can burrow a ling above it, then clicked its the ling thats being selected. Second you can burrow a lot of lings around the defiler to mask it, having the opponent click every burrowed unit to find the defiler, you can semi stack with this to make it a chore enough to just skip irradiation completely, the scan only lasts for so long until it has to be rescanned, with enough lings burrowed it might take too long to find. For an irradiation you need vision of the target for the whole duration irradiation is to be casted, if vision is gone it will be invalid target, then you will have to redo the whole process or remember defiler position.

I havent found out exactly how the stacking order works, sometimes the ling at the top and sometimes not.

To stack you pick a unit, click patrol on the burrowed unit, click burrow when its close or ontop depending of lag of the game.

One thing is for sure, having burrow makes defilers much harder to irradiate as you cant use the irradiation cast from over the whole map for said reason.
-.-
Crimson)S(hadow
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
Philippines757 Posts
August 29 2023 04:16 GMT
#10
On August 28 2023 17:05 MeSaber wrote:
To hide defilers you have some other options. You can burrow a ling above it, then clicked its the ling thats being selected. Second you can burrow a lot of lings around the defiler to mask it, having the opponent click every burrowed unit to find the defiler, you can semi stack with this to make it a chore enough to just skip irradiation completely, the scan only lasts for so long until it has to be rescanned, with enough lings burrowed it might take too long to find. For an irradiation you need vision of the target for the whole duration irradiation is to be casted, if vision is gone it will be invalid target, then you will have to redo the whole process or remember defiler position.

I havent found out exactly how the stacking order works, sometimes the ling at the top and sometimes not.

To stack you pick a unit, click patrol on the burrowed unit, click burrow when its close or ontop depending of lag of the game.

One thing is for sure, having burrow makes defilers much harder to irradiate as you cant use the irradiation cast from over the whole map for said reason.


figuring out how burrow order works and possibly being able to intentionally manipulate it holds so much potential
"It's the end of the BW era which i devoted everything to for 10 years. I tried playing sc2, but my BW memories run too deep; I felt like I was playing an entirely different game" -ToSsGirL
MeSaber
Profile Joined December 2009
Sweden1235 Posts
Last Edited: 2023-08-30 07:06:37
August 30 2023 06:57 GMT
#11
I was trying to find this out with my programmeing expert wnr75 but we lead to believe its memory reference based so no way of manipulating it.

Example: unit is created, it gets an id put in memory spot x (randomly), second unit created gets and id and put in memory spot y which is before spot x so it ends up at the top of the stack order.

We tried many many things to make it work but ended up with random memory location as the stack order.

Another thing we found is different selection order based on amount of units being selected.

Example you select exactly 12 units (the max amount) then it got the order of min x -> max x (left to right) in the selection window, while selecting more than 12 units made the selection order random (maybe also memory reference).

Why would you ever care about this selection order? Well it could be used to send units in parallell lines. Example you select 6 mutas in a horizontal line, they then get the order, most left muta = first in selection window. If you would want to send each muta downwards in a straight line you would select all mutas then move command then deselect(shift key) each muta from the top left of selection window to make mutas be deselected from left to right.

There are moments i actually use this to not have all selected units cross each other but instead take the shortest route. Example if you have 2 mutas horizontally you would want left muta to go left and right to right if split up.

One thing to note is that if you hotkey a group of units the selection window order is never random for each time you select the group with a hotkey (ctrl-1). It keeps the original order from when the hotkey group was saved so if you mix your units up the most left unit after mixing might not be the first unit in selection window anymore.

This has its own usecases to cast spells. If you hotkey say 6 HTs in ctrl-1, the order of each HT will never change in selection window, if you remember what HTs you clicked in selection window to throw storms you will know which ones you used up already.

Its also a quick way to check energy on each HT: click 1, select first HT, no E, repeat.

Just to mention the fastest way to check E on many HTs: select your HTs, click storm and throw it somewhere on minimap out of range, the ones who moves have E. Click Stop.
-.-
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Replay Cast
00:00
SEL Masters #7
CranKy Ducklings36
Liquipedia
PSISTORM Gaming Misc
23:00
FSL s11 code B championship
Freeedom32
Liquipedia
The PiG Daily
22:00
Best Games of SC
Rogue vs ByuN
Serral vs Clem
Classic vs TBD
PiGStarcraft601
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
PiGStarcraft601
ViBE165
ProTech76
CosmosSc2 49
StarCraft: Brood War
Hyun 59
Dota 2
420jenkins446
NeuroSwarm147
League of Legends
Doublelift6286
Counter-Strike
summit1g5783
tarik_tv2522
minikerr43
Other Games
gofns16494
C9.Mang0335
XaKoH 165
Mew2King146
UpATreeSC131
JuggernautJason84
SteadfastSC20
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick811
[ Show 15 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Hupsaiya 53
• musti20045 26
• CranKy Ducklings SOOP6
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• HerbMon 34
• RayReign 4
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• masondota21763
Other Games
• imaqtpie1096
Upcoming Events
RSL Revival
8h 33m
herO vs SHIN
Clem vs Solar
Serral vs Rogue
Ladder Legends
17h 33m
Ladder Legends
19h 33m
RSL Revival
1d 8h
OSC
1d 12h
OSC
1d 23h
WardiTV Weekly
2 days
The Patches Monday
2 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
PiG Sty Festival
3 days
[ Show More ]
PiGosaur Cup
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Kung Fu Cup
4 days
Replay Cast
4 days
The PondCast
5 days
Replay Cast
5 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Escore Tournament S3: W6
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
Acropolis #5
RSL Revival: Season 6
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S3: W7
CSLAN 4
ASL Season 22
Escore Tournament S3: W8
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
Thunderpick World Champ.
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
Logitech G Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.