EPT[G][Q] My zerg on coke - Page 21
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h3L
Bulgaria33 Posts
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Misrah
United States1695 Posts
On December 05 2008 19:00 WhenHellfreezes wrote: @Metaspace I'm thinking about doing the standard muta timing and getting 9-11 muta then adding queens nest. @Rucky Um you have a point that hydras save gas. However I feel that muta/ling will infact benifit alot from ensnare, hydra/ling cannot stop the timing push, 12 hydra's are not nearly as effective as 12 muta's and muta/ling is still very mobile so it definetly can still track down expansions and threaten backstabs. Also it forces turrets. These are just my personal opinions and may not be correct. one problem. Irradiate will raep your mutas. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28649 Posts
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WhenHellfreezes
United States81 Posts
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GHOSTCLAW
United States17042 Posts
On December 06 2008 02:20 WhenHellfreezes wrote: Very true Irradiate would hurt. Possible solution would be that you don't have to always stack your muta's and once SV's roll around you can just unstack them from there on out. Though unstacked muta's aren't as strong against mnm. I still think its more viable than hydra ling. maybe, maybe not. try it, come back, and post reps  Just as theory, I think that forcing them to build turrets is nice, especially at a high level, but you're going to force the queens with ensnare to come out after sci vessels pop. You're basically changing the window of timing for the T. At that point, queens are just an alternative to mass lurkers, or macro timing savior style. We're not talking about openings anymore, we're talking about playing styles. to go further back in the thread, we were using hydra/ling because we built an extra hat to get better econ, which made us have more larve. The nice thing about 3 hat muta, and what makes it so common, is that you have 100% larve usage between the beginning of the game, all the way through the scouting that you get with the 3 hat muta (and then you adapt). By getting that fourth hat in this build, you can use the same mins/gas to build more hydra ling. you can't go just ling because of firebats, and hydra are ranged, which is nice. As i said before though, I'm pretty sure it's a gameplay call, so show us with reps | ||
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Misrah
United States1695 Posts
On December 06 2008 02:18 Liquid`Drone wrote: this thread pleases me I'm so glad | ||
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A3iL3r0n
United States2196 Posts
On December 06 2008 02:20 WhenHellfreezes wrote: Very true Irradiate would hurt. Possible solution would be that you don't have to always stack your muta's and once SV's roll around you can just unstack them from there on out. Though unstacked muta's aren't as strong against mnm. I still think its more viable than hydra ling. Actually, unstacked mutas are worthless against mnm because you can't focus fire due to Mutas short attack range. (Unless of course you have an overwhelming amount of Mutas, in which case the game is probably already over for the T player.) Anyway, have you ever tried to keep air units unstacked? They love to stack. Absolutely love it. It helps keep them warm at night. | ||
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Misrah
United States1695 Posts
-12hatch -11pool -13hatch -8ling Done 18/18 -18 hatch -17 gas -16 overlord -17drone -18drone -19drone First 100 gas ling speed Through down an evo chamber next 150 gas +1 carapace next 50 gas start den when den is 50/70 % start next gas -lair? Still working on the most appropriate timing -when den pops, get RANGE -after range speed - when +1 carapace compleates start +2 -lair pop, start Qnest -Qnest pop start ensnare edit: here is the rep http://www.mediafire.com/?d4tjgzktmnw -start Queen when ensnare is 20% complete So this is the new BO i have been working on. Please tell me what you think of the timings and or what could be done to change the BO. | ||
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Crunchums
United States11143 Posts
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GHOSTCLAW
United States17042 Posts
On December 07 2008 18:39 Crunchums wrote: Aside from hyvaa generally being a subpar player I'm not sure why he chose cross positions on Andromeda of all maps to try it on. Seems like you'd want a less open map so that it's harder for the terran's army to just run away whenever he gets ensnared (as flash frequently did). it forced flash to go through the middle of the map, which should allow you to surround much easier. | ||
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Lucristia
United States9 Posts
Anyways I'm excited to try this strategy out but I'd like to receive some constructive feedback about an opinion of mine concerning the mentality and style of this strategy before I work more with it. I'd like to hear from others why lurkers can't become a formidable form of map control once you do get defilers. In particular, why transition into ultra/ling when this midgame approach seems to naturally transition into hydra/lurk/defiler, which is a pretty common zerg late game unit composition for pros and amateurs alike; regardless of queens. Of course, this tech path may not be chosen depending on the number of tanks one snipes early on. Many have said that hydras don't have synergy with darkswarm but I beg to differ. The trick is to cast darkswarm where you want your hydras and lurkers to go, not on top of the terran ball like you would with ultra/ling. Such darkswarms forces flanks that mnm, vessels, and even tanks (less than critical) can not engage. And what better way to pick off those retreating units than with hydra's range? Especially if the retreating mnm are crippled with ensnare or plague. Usually you can't do too much damage before you get plague, but T just can't do anything to gain mapcontrol. Just more time for you to upgrade and expo. Because of how slow tanks are, you can also use your hydras, lurkers and defilers to split his main expos from his new expos. This can be devastating to the Ts that were smart enough to not get caught out of position ealier with ensnare and decide to play the macro game. A good example was one of the jaedong vs. flash reps. It was played on fantasy and flash's sn was goldenmouse. The counter to the above composition of course is mass tanks. Although even before finishing upgrading lurker, darkswarm and lings alone can rip those few precious sieged up tanks a new one. Usually Ts start working for a more SK like unit composition after they see you have darkswarm anyways. I'm not too sure about broodling yet, but if it works out well in the long run, in theory it'd be a waste for T to keep up tank production. Also in really late game play, where a ton of sieged tanks are layed out everywhere, zergling bombs can be really nasty too when combined with pincer attacks. My 2 cents worth. I hope to spark some conversation at the very least. | ||
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Metaspace
Austria670 Posts
There are not few people who deem hydra/lurk/defiler too expensive in gas. Perhaps this combo could be viable with help of ensnare, but I doubt it. Hydras die faster than you can blink vs. tanks - even under dark swarm (given enough tanks), due to splash and (usually) compact hydra groups. You'd then need lings to take out tanks, but marines guarding them will defend well unless you cast dark swarm there, too - sounds a bit much to me really. I am afraid this approach would only work IMO if you are so far ahead economically that any one would win. Concerning use of broodling, I have posted (way) above that for me, it does not seem viable from the games I played, because even if you get to a situation where you have like 6 or 7 well charged queens (rather rare), all you can do is broodling 6 tanks (at most! and what about Ensnare then), which in late(r) game does help but is not nearly enough to take out sufficient tank numbers when T logically goes tank heavy vs. your hydras. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28649 Posts
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Rucky
United States717 Posts
Use queens when they're useful i.e. when the army is smaller and losing tanks actually hurt. I'm actually working on zerg build myself that involves hydras and queens, but less Misrah style. Since his style asks for more hatches and economy in the beginning before getting hydras and ensnare, it misses the timing window of when it is useful and give terran too much time. A substantial terran army at that point is too big for ensnare hydra ling. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28649 Posts
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kNife
Malaysia70 Posts
but thx anway~~=) | ||
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GHOSTCLAW
United States17042 Posts
On December 10 2008 20:22 Liquid`Drone wrote: queens are extremely useful lategame. broodling is not, ensnare is. ensnare never stops to be useful, broodling is virtually never useful. If they choose to go something involving 2 fact, and you scout it, going broodling can help, because it forces better army control from the T. If they leave their tanks undefended, you can get them, because queens are really pretty fast. it's probably the only case where getting broodling first *might* be more effective than ensnare first. the tough part is scouting it. | ||
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Lucristia
United States9 Posts
On December 10 2008 18:31 Metaspace wrote: There are not few people who deem hydra/lurk/defiler too expensive in gas. Perhaps this combo could be viable with help of ensnare, but I doubt it. I'd like to converse with anyone who believes this to be true. For if it is, this alone will undoubtedly show the ignorance in my thinking process and experience. I'm not stubornly rejecting that point for I don't have that much experience with it. However, at the moment I believe that hydra/lurk/defiler is much less gas intensive than ultra/ling especially if you didn't have the ultra ling upgrades to begin the late game phase with. I think it'd be a good idea for me and anyone else who is interested to again watch the only flash vs jaedong game posted here (easy to search). I believe Jaedong stayed on 3 gas until he was winning. He even got a min only before getting a 4th gas which leads to the following point. In my experience, hydra/lurker/defiler is in fact very mineral intensive. I've found that I've devoted more than half my larvae to zerglings just by how much more critical defilers are here compared to a massive ultra army. (not entirely sure if this is true but I do agree with you that without pulling back into darkswarm and even further if enough tanks are around, that hydra's die rediculously fastn even with gosu flanks late game.). I spend a lot less gas on gas intensive units given that irradiate raids are much more difficult to pull off against this unit composition. Saving gas by forcing your opponent to go heavy tanks instead of mass death orbs is again part of the strength of this build especially given how gas intensive scourge are. It makes sense to think, "wait a minute, hydra, lurks and defilers are all really gas intensive." Its true, but 3 gas alone is optimal to support mass lurk/defiler play anyways and I'm not even talking about mass lurk. I'm talking about just enough lurks and a good enough number of hydras to seriously discourage your opponent from regaining map control with anything sort of sk build. On December 10 2008 18:31 Metaspace wrote: Hydras die faster than you can blink vs. tanks - even under dark swarm (given enough tanks), due to splash and (usually) compact hydra groups. You'd then need lings to take out tanks, but marines guarding them will defend well unless you cast dark swarm there, too - sounds a bit much to me really. The point I made earlier on is that going lurker/hydra tech may not be viable depending on how many tanks you can snipe early on with darkswarm. This isn't a hard dependency to fulfill though for the very reason sk terran starts becoming necessary once darkswarm completes. It is just too easy to snipe those initial tanks. They literally can't siege vs any zerg with defilers. Usually T invests in those early tanks not to reach critical mass, but to push for the win before darkswarm comes out. This is why I believe hydra/lurk would be a fantastic transition for this bo. It very much requires T to further his immobility against you with expensive units whether or not he wants to. And if he tries to counter you with tanks after losing the first batch of them, there will always be a large timing where his tanks are very vulnerable to you. Even while going hydra/defiler/lurk, you tend to have a ton of lings still. If he can't reach critical mass before plague gets researched, he probably won't have a chance for the rest of the game due to how easy it is to snipe 1hp tanks with hydras. If you couldn't do enough damage to his tanks early on, then yes, hydras slowly become useless under dark swarm like you said, and ultra/ling makes a lot more sense. In the Jaedong vs Flash rep, Jaedong instantly started teching hydra upgrades as soon as his lings pounced on flash's 5-6 siege tanks trying to unsiege and not a moment before. Flash kept trying to build seige tanks with very little profit coming from the few he had out until plague and hydras massacred the rines and made the rest of lone tanks easy picking for the hydras. On December 10 2008 18:31 Metaspace wrote: Concerning use of broodling, I have posted (way) above that for me, it does not seem viable from the games I played, because even if you get to a situation where you have like 6 or 7 well charged queens (rather rare), all you can do is broodling 6 tanks (at most! and what about Ensnare then), which in late(r) game does help but is not nearly enough to take out sufficient tank numbers when T logically goes tank heavy vs. your hydras. I fully agree with you here. I'm not a big fan of broodling. All I said before is that if broodling did work, I'm sure it'd work wonders. Kind of like how the much less energy expensive irradate works wonders on our expensive ultras. On December 10 2008 18:31 Metaspace wrote: however, here's the thing, plague compliments hydras SO MUCH better. the combination plague/ hydra is really, really awesome. if you can throw both, by all means do it, but if you have a hydralisk army you should almost never throw dark swarm at the expense of plague. Agreed, though in my mind, once you get plague, assuming T hasn't done too much economic damage to you and assuming he isn't that much better than you, the game should already be over. Its much harder for T to micro against plague than it is for us to use it. My point I tried to make with my earlier post is that although you can't do much damage against T with darkswarm and hydra's, its nigh impossible for the T to take back map control from you until the plague upgrade completes. | ||
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Metaspace
Austria670 Posts
That being said (and me being at work, not able to play *g*), a weak point I believe to see in your theory is the assumption of a SK build. A decent T will by mid-game have realized that you are not playing classic, and (according to my experience with test games) stop or not even start going mass vessel, and instead make more factories, and pump tanks - transitioning into a more TvP kind of build (I even saw vultures in one game). So, killing his "initial" tanks did not put me in any kind of position you hope for. Anyway, against this response, I found that, unsurprisingly, hydralinglurk had no chance to shred a sieged ball; Ensnare doesnt help much, too (no effect on tanks). Like in PvT, I tried to take on his army while moving, but in comparison to P, my Z army had not enough punch to take out enough of the T before his tanks were sieged. Defilers surely help in this setup, but so do ultras, and they are much less susceptible to bad micro, and with ultras, you also do not need lurkers (I totally skip them with the Misrah build) and everything that is connected to them (suck vs. tanks without swarm, bad mobility, prone to mistakes costing you the battle etc.). So resource-wise, both approaches do not differ much IMHO, while the ultra version is much easier to control, and has better mobility. | ||
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Lucristia
United States9 Posts
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