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Active: 1545 users

Why zerg always builds mutalisks vs terran?

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
Post a Reply
SiarX
Profile Joined December 2021
104 Posts
April 12 2024 15:52 GMT
#1
They are costly investments, and often do not deal that much damage to justify cost. I get that they are supposed to keep terran on his base, but would not building many lurkers instead succesfully protect zerg bases, too?
HerbMon
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United States464 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-12 19:33:25
April 12 2024 17:42 GMT
#2
Scouting a Zerg going lurker is fairly easy to sniff out. If the Zerg goes for the fastest lurker timing they can't get their third, which makes them very two base heavy. So if the Zerg commits to this they need todo damage or they're significantly behind economically. Also Terran will sit behind bunker and turret untill they get 3 siege tank and vessel.
How we will win in the period ahead.
CHEONSOYUN
Profile Joined August 2017
538 Posts
April 12 2024 20:30 GMT
#3
zergs fight terrans asymmetrically
JAEDONG...!!! EFFORT IS ANGRY. ZERG...?!
Nirli
Profile Joined February 2023
Bulgaria373 Posts
April 13 2024 01:15 GMT
#4
Because lurkers don't fly.
avanhokie
Profile Joined May 2017
50 Posts
April 13 2024 07:27 GMT
#5
Mutalisks have far greater flexibility, they can defend a push and harass. Lurkers have more limited options in my opinion, outright kill with fast initial lurkers, contain and expand to the 3rd gas and transition, or contain and kill with fast defiler.
Soulforged
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Latvia924 Posts
April 13 2024 14:26 GMT
#6
Because it is a fucking awesome unit
IntoTheWow
Profile Blog Joined May 2004
is awesome32277 Posts
April 14 2024 14:30 GMT
#7
On April 13 2024 00:52 SiarX wrote:
They are costly investments, and often do not deal that much damage to justify cost. I get that they are supposed to keep terran on his base, but would not building many lurkers instead succesfully protect zerg bases, too?


If you watch some progames, you can see the amount of turrets terran need to make to hold different variations of muta openings. Sometimes they can do with 6 or so, sometimes they more and they also need to rebuild the ones destroyed by mutalisks.
If terran needs to make around 10~12 turrets to hold in the end, that's 750~900 minerals alone (+eng bay), without taking into account the lost SCV mining time because of: building/rebuilding turrets and dead SCVs.

As others have said, if you go lurker, Terran will sit behind a bunker and wait for a good timming. Lurkers don't work well in small numbers versus a Terran army. As a Zerg you will end up being the reactive one, burrowing/unburrowing and taking chip damage everywhere while they Terran manouvers around the map. The moment siege is up, you are on a timer to defend or lose your natural.
You will also lose map control. Pro terrans are very good at skirmishing versus low population zerg armies. You could be dead by a single scan, runby or a drop.

A muta opening not only keeps Terran blind and on the defensive, but forces the Terran to tech to move out, keeps their army small (it's hard to move out versus a good Muta user) and gives some breathing room to expand.
Moderator<:3-/-<
XenOsky
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Chile2277 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-15 07:54:44
April 15 2024 07:11 GMT
#8
lurkers used to be the way to go vs terran back in the day, but lack of movility made it difficult to play vs sk terran, mutas were able to hit before a critical number of marines and gave zergs the ability to move arround the map while forcing turrets.

with time muta control got A LOT better, so mutas became basically the only playable openning.

same shit is happening with reavers in PvT... u can attack or defend with reavers while expanding or reduce the number of terran units while T is pushing...
StarCraft & Audax Italiano.
rusty23456
Profile Joined September 2009
United States110 Posts
April 16 2024 22:35 GMT
#9
at tr24 low mutas are super strong
zimp
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Hungary951 Posts
April 21 2024 21:22 GMT
#10
I think on mid level ranks, lurker opening is fine. High level terrans have good enough micro to kill lurkers, while high level zergs have good enough muta micro to be cost effective. And people just copied them.
agentzimp
TL+ Member
Liquid`Drone
Profile Joined September 2002
Norway28694 Posts
April 26 2024 15:02 GMT
#11
Ye, at S+ level terrans are very good at countering a lurker opening they expect/know is coming. Therefore you need a good muta game to be competitive at the highest level.

In single games youll see lurker openings with quite some frequency though, especially in the ASL. And zergs that are B or below could do perfectly fine opening lurker every game. When I was semi-competitive at a low S rank level, zvt was my best mu and i opened muta at most 25% of the time, and i virtually never made more than 11.
Moderator
iFU.pauline
Profile Joined September 2009
France1647 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-04-27 09:20:56
April 27 2024 09:04 GMT
#12
There is a myriad of build-order variants for opening lurkers but it should remain hidden strat. Once I watched the finest lurker opening from EffOrt with a 3 hatch build putting spire and den at the same time but instead going for lurker upgrade, the timing was done so he would put 6 hydras dispersed among larva near hatcheries and morph them into lurkers which would be around the time terran would scan and believe muta are coming therefore staying in its base and building turrets. Terran (who was ex-PGM) understood at the very last time and went out of its base to delay lurker wall but failed to do so, with a 5 rax +1, terran never came out of his base for the rest of the game. There is a bit of gambling of course and it's EffOrt executing it when he was going freestyle gameplay.

I was very attached back in the day with a lurker opening and had to force learning muta coze terran would go fact very early and be able to push you way before you had defiler. Also gameplay is pretty straightforward, I would say near boring because it's the same gameplan unless you want to go for fast drop and if you fail terran will just roll over you.
No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere, I see Heaven's glories shine, And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear
Comodore
Profile Joined July 2013
Brazil49 Posts
May 01 2024 17:55 GMT
#13
On April 27 2024 18:04 iFU.pauline wrote:
There is a myriad of build-order variants for opening lurkers but it should remain hidden strat. Once I watched the finest lurker opening from EffOrt with a 3 hatch build putting spire and den at the same time but instead going for lurker upgrade, the timing was done so he would put 6 hydras dispersed among larva near hatcheries and morph them into lurkers which would be around the time terran would scan and believe muta are coming therefore staying in its base and building turrets. Terran (who was ex-PGM) understood at the very last time and went out of its base to delay lurker wall but failed to do so, with a 5 rax +1, terran never came out of his base for the rest of the game. There is a bit of gambling of course and it's EffOrt executing it when he was going freestyle gameplay.

I was very attached back in the day with a lurker opening and had to force learning muta coze terran would go fact very early and be able to push you way before you had defiler. Also gameplay is pretty straightforward, I would say near boring because it's the same gameplan unless you want to go for fast drop and if you fail terran will just roll over you.


Do you have a link or replay of this game?
DeepElemBlues
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States5079 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-05-01 23:36:15
May 01 2024 23:27 GMT
#14
On April 13 2024 00:52 SiarX wrote:
They are costly investments, and often do not deal that much damage to justify cost. I get that they are supposed to keep terran on his base, but would not building many lurkers instead succesfully protect zerg bases, too?

if you go straight to lurker and try to contain, it is very hard to stop terran from busting your contain with siege tanks. then if the terran is aggressive and comes out it can be hard to stop them setting up siege tanks at your natural

you can harass SCV line with mutalisks, which also keeps the terran army contained, running around from his natural to his main and back chasing your mutas. and if the terran comes out to attack you can effectively harass his army as it moves across the map with mutas, pick off marines/medics/tanks (if they go tanks. which they usually wont because you went muta first not lurker).

yes lurkers are effective at defending, not so much at containing or attacking (not that they're ineffective, just less effective than muta)
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