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Hi, this is my first time posting here. I've posted on gosugamers.net before. I've had terrible problems with that site. I posted almost 30 games before someone realised that I wasn't doing basic ZvR stuff. They told me what I was doing wrong, but I had been developing bad habits, etc, for like 3 months, so you can imagine I was really pissed.
The other problems I have are general ZvZ, and muta micro, but I'm going to use this as a test to see if this site is any good. Sorry if I sound disrespectful, but I am seriously sick of people telling me crap that doesn't work. Please do not reply to this if you don't know what I'm talking about. The last thing I want to do is develop yet another bad habit or stupid strategy.
If you have a team, or looking for playing partners, message me about it. I'm in CST (-6 hours from GST), and can play 2-11 every day. I know the upper level players don't want to waste their time, but I've found that fighting people who are much better than you teaches you a lot in a hurry.
Also, please don't post anything about "you could have won if you rushed him at X:XX." I don't care. I don't learn anything from short games. I don't rush because I want to learn more about my MU's.
Here's the replay.
http://screplays.info/files/153338618/LastReplay.rep
I play zerg. I consider ZvP to be my best MU, except for when this happens. He masses dragoons middle game, breaks the containment. I don't know how to counter this. I know that late game I must use defilers for dark swarm to make all of their attacks useless. I can handle mass dragoons late game, but I can't handle them mid game. Should I rush to defilers quicker?
I seriously have lost to this like every time. Do I sacrifice overlords to see his dragoons coming? But how do I know when to do it, since I'll be losing a ton of overlords if I want this to happen? And how do I counter the dragoons? Mass ling/hydra ?
Thanks for replies.
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Hell, gg.net is supposed to be TL's Trash not the opposite
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zerglings usually beats dragoons, and when youre going into lategame, cracklings just rape goons so much and while youre saving up the gas, you can do a tech switch and go ultraling with defilers.
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On November 15 2008 09:43 MisterKatosS wrote:
Hell, gg.net is supposed to be TL's Trash not the opposite
LOL. at least be a kind troll and help the man out.
I wish i could watch the replay, but my main computer is in to have it's motherboard replaced, and the one i'm using now doesn't have starcraft installed, however, as a protoss player, i can tell you a few reasons why building dragoons against zerg is a bad idea:
1. Dragoons do explosive damage, meaning they do half-damage to small units like zerglings and mutalisks, and 75% damage to hydralisks, which are medium.
2. Dragoons are large, and take full damage from zergling's normal attack damage, and full damage from hydralisk's explosive damage, while only dealing 1/2 damage to lings and 3/4 damage to hydras. Mutas also do full damage and dragoons do half-damage.
now, for countering them: lings, hydras, mutas all do the trick. which you should have mid-game by the time he has something approaching "mass dragoons." also, if he doesn't build observers, you can really screw him over with lurker tech. If he manages to give you enough time to tech to hive, +3 zerglings with the adrenal upgrade has the highest damage per second of any unit in the game against large units like dragoons. they'll tear them to shreds. or, dark swarm will screw him over since he can't hit anything under it. You really have a lot of choices since dragoons really aren't used except against lurkers and guardians in PvZ.
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I don't main Zerg so I can only point out a few things I think would've helped.
-His pylon made your natural expansion come up 1 tile below the optimal gas mining location. You were getting slow gas since you still kept only 3 drones on it.
-This led to a low lurker count. 2 at 10 minutes? If you're going for a lurker contain I'd expect at least 10 or so... you did have the gas but you spent it on things like overlord drop which you didn't show any intent of using.
-Your contain's positioning wasn't effective. Positioning alone wouldn't have helped with your low lurker count, but make sure to be closer to the choke next time in order to funnel and confuse his dragoons. As it was, he was able to form a line of 12 dragoons all firing... you'd rather him be in a tight spot where lurker fire converges on his troops instead of his troops converging on you.
-You need Carapace. If you get evolution chambers earlier you could've had 2/2 by the time he hit you... instead you had +1 weapons on both melee and range. Carapace is more important. It doesn't help as much in zerglings vs dragoons if he's keeping up with his ups, but it prevents your zerglings from getting mauled in 2 hits by his zealots.
Those were the most important things you could've done better there. I also noticed that you made spire and scourge but his observers still survived. If they aren't going to help you at all, more lurkers would've been a better use of gas.
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16978 Posts
The problem wasn't the Dragoons.
Honestly, even if he had picked a more standard unit combo, you still would have lost. You had way too many resources, and just didn't keep up with him unit-wise. Also, you should have kept more of an eye on him scouting-wise, gate count, unit combo, etc. But your main problem was your macro, which just wasn't good enough to keep up.
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After seeing your rep, I found this :
1 - You only upgraded attack ! that's huge ! your lings die in two +1 zealots shots instead of three, your armor has too match protoss attack !
2 - Unit placement ! all your army must fight all at once, it's huge too, and quite simple too deal with in a contain situation.
3 - you were quite drone heavy, a bit too much in my opinion and your nat was more than saturated while your main and 3 rd could have used those extra drones.
4 - And use your first lurk, you could have killed his wall gate before obs
Hydra, lings, lurks are enough to deal with zeal, goons with no templar
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On November 15 2008 09:56 vAltyR wrote:Show nested quote +On November 15 2008 09:43 MisterKatosS wrote:
Hell, gg.net is supposed to be TL's Trash not the opposite LOL. at least be a kind troll and help the man out.
you are right, done !
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Hell, gg.net is supposed to be TL's Trash not the opposite
I STRONGLY disagree. I got replies to this in less than 30 minutes, and they actually told me what I did wrong. I post on gg.net and get replies 6+ hours later, and the replies totally suck (or ask me to do ridiculous amounts of micro for no reason).
Is there a secret "actually helps" board on gg.net? Because they seriously suck.
If you're going for a lurker contain I'd expect at least 10 or so...
Are you serious? I've been told to make like three or so up to this point.
Thanks for the other things. I thought there was some kind of special thing I had to do, but next time I see this I will have msas ling/lurk/muta and will get the contain better.
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GrandInquisitor
New York City13113 Posts
Carapace is important for Zerg in general; really important ZvP. Upgrade it, if only to stay ahead of Protoss' ground weapons so their zealots aren't super zealots. It makes a huge difference.
And against mass dragoons, literally anything other than lurkers works. Hydralisks, zerglings, mutalisks all tear apart dragoons; the gas they cost means he has to scale back on upgrades, sairs, temps, or archons.
You should only need to sacrifice like one overlord to see that he's going a mass dragoon strategy. It ought to be pretty obvious, since most PvZ players make very few dragoons.
I mean, you don't even need to commit to a lurk contain-based style of play. As long as you get a proper flank with your hydra/ling/possible muta and can crush his army, then it'll take forever for him to rebuild.
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Hydras would probably be the best option vs mass goons. They are so much more cost effective and effecient then goons are
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You went for two early attack upgrades. It didn't make sense, you scouted his +1 attack and decided to stay behind in carapace upgrades? Your build was generally pretty strange... you went for a very early contain and a late third sacrificing a lot of economy, but without any real devotion into the contain or an effort to damage his economy.
If you sacrifice so much into keeping him contained you have to make sure he won't get out UNTIL you have at least managed to stay on 3 bases for a while. With only 2 lurkers and bad usage of the hydra-ling army, you didn't punish him for having no storm. With bad army usage, I'm talking about you standing idle with your control groups, attacking him with a few units at a time while he's breaking out. It didn't help that you were 80 vs 130 in population either...
Also, you didn't upgrade hydra range, they were practically useless against the goons. And as previously mentioned you were behind in carapace.
Against a heavy goon army you need to flank flank flank.
A lurker contain is in no way a direct counter to massgoons midgame, but since you seem to enjoy containbuilds I'll try to explain how to do it correctly. The contain is supposed to work this way:
First!
You place the lurkers in lines, separated from eachother, but also with at least two 'blocks'. This damages the zealots a lot more than just one 'block' where he can just spread them around the lurkers without losing a single one (in this scenario, he would have won even easier with mass zealots than with goons). In several blocks, this is impossible because the lurkers behind shoot at the zealot 'clump' surrounding the first batch of lurkers. Also, to be able to attack and surround his army effectively, you need to lure him out of the choke - a deep contain works to your advantage since you can flank the goons easily. But making it too far back or spread out will also make it easier for him to kill one or two lurkers on the sides and the run 'around' your contain.
Hydras are either a very big part in the contain or practically nonexisting. There are both backsides and advantages to this. Using hydralurkerling in your contain, you do not need to stress spire since you can snipe observers with your hydras, and also, they work as good support for the lings while the goons have to ineffectively target the lings first. But remember, you seriously need range vs range, or your hydras will just get raped. The backside with using a lot of hydras in your contain is that it's more expensive and it'll take longer time to rejuvenate the contain. Lurkerling+scourge requires very good control to constantly be able to accurately run into his observers and pull back and forth zerglings all the time while avoiding potential storm or zealots.
Also, often zergs rally hatcheries directly to the contain to maximize the unit strength used. Placing overlords near his army is beneficial - you need to constantly be aware of when he is trying to break out. You should NOT let him in range of the lurkers until you have depleted your whole hydraling army (by attacking his goons every time he tries to break out(note: this does not mean you should be careless with them)).
To sum it up though. Your build looked as if it had no real purpose - very early (wrong) upgrades, but low econ contain play (looked even more so because of bad drone saturation), hydraling without hydra upgrades, 2 bases when there was no problem with taking 3rd - even with low econ build). Your so called contain was pitiful, and your army control was abysmal.
These were in my opinion the main factors that resulted in your loss.
Also, the questions:
"I know that late game I must use defilers for dark swarm to make all of their attacks useless. I can handle mass dragoons late game, but I can't handle them mid game. Should I rush to defilers quicker?
I seriously have lost to this like every time. Do I sacrifice overlords to see his dragoons coming? But how do I know when to do it, since I'll be losing a ton of overlords if I want this to happen? And how do I counter the dragoons? Mass ling/hydra ?"
NO, I mean, this is preference of course. There are 2 base hive rush strats and lurker contains involving very early defilers. BUT, There is something wrong with your game sense if you are asking these questions. For two reasons:
He didn't go massgoons because he thought it was fun, or because he knew you sucked against it - he went it because he was 'forced' (well, not exactly in this game since you only made 2 lurkers) to - you basically said with your build order: 'I'm going to sacrifice a lot to get in control of this game and force him to play by my rules'.
Also, Starcraft is a game of soft counters. hydraling is common against protoss midgame armies with a lot of goons in them, but it's not like it's your only option. Many good zerg players use and variate with many different kind of units to keep the protoss player vulnerable throughout the game.
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On November 15 2008 10:50 Racenilatr wrote:
Hydras would probably be the best option vs mass goons. They are so much more cost effective and effecient then goons are
Nah, because he'll have a line of lots to use as a meat shield...and even though hydras do full damage to goons, they just don't die fast enough, it seems.
It's best to have a large amount of lings mixed in against the goons if you dont have like double his food count or something.
use hydras to pull the lots, and flank with lings...or vice versa...or whatever.
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You can use scourge to kill the observers to keep him contained as long as possible. Just watched out for the harass coming in with dt/reaver/ht on your +bases. Zerglings are pretty effective against goons and they don't cost any gas which allow your hive units to come in much faster.
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If you're losing to mass anything, you're simply being outmacro'd. Pure hydra ling is enough to overtake the majority of tosses, especially since he has to break out of a contain.
Work on that macro.
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I would suggest getting cracklings and double upgrades as quickly as possible. As zerg, your army is usually supposed to be bigger than his.
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grab whiz reps for z vs goon.
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There's just a bunch of fundamentals you need to work on, its nothing so simple as "lings > goons". Typing as I watch...
*forgot overlord at 18. minor but hurts more when its early.
*OK this is a bit bigger. You know the P fast expo'd. You have to have some sort of plan for that. Since you 12 hatched into 3 hatches, the easiest thing to do is to respond by expoing again, adding an evo, and booming drones, while scouting the protoss, since this is a very standard map like Python. In fact quite often I put the 3rd hatch at a close expo and then put a 4th hatch at my nat. You opt for a fast lair and den. That can be a viable option, especially against players at these skill levels who are generally not at the top of their game with scouting, but lets see if this is going anywhere meaningful.
*generally don't move your overlord away until you see what he builds after the core (even if he doesn't show you anything). You can afford to lose it to see if he goes immediate stargate, adds gateways, adds citadel, or is actively hiding his tech.
*like I thought, there is no coherent plan behind going fast lair + den. You're not doing anything that useful with it. Considering doing the "+1 expo when P fast expos" and macroing hard. It can be fun and also educational to try quick 2-hatch lair builds like slow drop lurks at close positions or something, but this build is sort of neither here nor there.
*OK you're going for a lurk contain. This is probably because someone told you "lurk contain is very good against fast expo P". It is, its great. The problem is you're just sort of doing it without understanding why. When Protoss fast expands, he is giving you a giant window of time where his capacity for any sort of real aggression is pretty minimal. The biggest danger is an explosive +1 zeal attack, but thats fairly easy to scout so you can adapt to it. In this case he's going stargate which presents you with even more time. As a Zerg, you want to use this time to whore your economy. Generally, as Zerg, you should ONLY make military units at the LAST possible time to safely make them. At ALL other times you want to make drones and hatcheries. So when you are going for this lurk contain, you are doing it too early and off of an insufficiently droned economy- all those larvae you used for your lurkers and lings could have been drones, and lurk/ling later. In fact, going drones actually starts speeding up your economy as you can start adding more hatches (5th hatch generally by the time the lurk contain is well in place).
Lurkers are not magical because they are invisible for now, if the P has a much superior economy to you he will simply wait for obs at his leisure and roll over you as you passively sit there (and he does, with equal bases and your low drone count he can support a much stronger economy than you).
Even the lurk contain is just a delay mechanism. Its a temporary shield. Behind it, you want to be whoring your economy even more, using delaying tactics like threatening to scourge his observers or snipe them with hydras, occasionally retreating a bit if he looks like he's getting ready to bust out (so he has to set it up again), etc. The goal of the lurker contain is to protect your 4-5 base economy that is trying to reach hive. You don't want to rush hive, because then you have a terrible foundation for your hive economy.
You notice at 10 minutes when he's busting out the Protoss has 50 more supply than you off of equal bases? Thats pretty much the result of you trying to rush the tech without building the foundation of your economy first. P is generally going to have more supply than you at this point, but this is a bit much even then.
And like others said, upgrade your carapace first, then attack.
Good luck!
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my advice : try to build more units.
btw nice '2' lurker contain.
You have to realise the guy ran over you without psi or reavers.
There's something very wrong >.>
Btw, this has nothing to do with him making dragoons.
He couldve made only zealots or dts and still ran over you.
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EPT
