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Okay I've seen a lot of posts about ZvZ recently and most of them don't seem to quite understand the state that the matchup is in. So let me break this down very simply: speedlings rule all.
Okay why are speedlings so dominant in ZvZ in SC2? Let me explain this for you, a proper speedling build off of two hatcheries is able to force the Zerg player going roaches to be too defensive to do anything except trying to break out with Mutalisks. If he tries to get hydras the player with speedlings will laugh as they get surrounded and destroyed even faster than the roaches did. While the roach player is being defensive the one going speedlings is able to deny any expansions with the insane map control that speedlings offer.
Normally there is a breaking point where if the Roach zerg gets enough roaches he's able to move out and counter attack but all that's really needed to stop this by going speedlings is keeping drones on gas for longer and upgrading +1 Melee attacks. Speedlings with +1 kill roaches so much faster that a good surround basically means it doesn't matter how many roaches they have.
If the roach zerg goes for mutalisks hes going to have to cut roaches and the speedlings will break into the base and tear down the spire. Basically the only way to fight mass speedlings in ZvZ is to go speedlings yourself. So basically Zerg vs Zerg has degenerated into speedlings and just speedlings.
Try it and tell me that if you lose to roaches it wasnt because you accidentally got supply capped or didnt keep up with your larva. Hell I've done this on Kulas and Desert Oasis while accidentally getting supply capped and still won.
Build Order - 14 Hatch at natural
- 14 Pool
- 16 Gas
- Zergling speed on 100 gas
- ZERGLINGS
- +1 melee attacks on 100 gas
- MORE ZERGLINGS from 2 queens
Your hatch and pool will finish at the same time so even if your opponent went with a fast pool you can hold with pumping lings before adding drones or adding a spine crawler, the only real danger is a <10 pool and your overlord scout should be able to pick up on this on a 2 player map at which point you go for a 14 pool before the hatch and make sure he can't take his expo.
Seriously that's all it takes, if they went roaches and you can use your first 4/6 zerglings to get a good look inside his base to see if he did you've basically already won. If he's going for speedlings check out his natural expansion if it's still building attack once your 2nd queen larva have started spawning and you have a huge advantage in lings to take out his natural hatchery. Then running off two hatch two queens you'll outproduce him so heavily that it's not even funny.
If he did the same build well then it's going to come down to some actual zergling control like in SC:BW but the problem with in SC2 is if either player tries to go mutas they'll lose in the zergling war before the Mutas ever get to show up.
All of the above is why I have come to the conclusion that this matchup is BROKEN it stays at Tier 1 the entire game while teching only punishes the player trying to tech. The main problem is theres no real way to fix this without messing with the good balance of the other matchups as I like how ZvT and ZvP are balanced as it takes not just good unit composition but excellent control to win as well.
edit: [url blocked] 2 games of me doing it, 2 games of Dimaga and a korean zerg in the PlayXP this patch.
For clarity DIMAGA's games were in the semi finals and the finals of a $100 tournament, the PlayXP game was from the Round of 16 out of 256 so those 3 replays are vs good opponents. If both players are going speedlings the one who gets a 2nd hatch up and running first wins due to more larva.
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well.. I do a 10pool everygame pretty much (unless i have an ovie in their base, then I just purposely build my pool 10-15 secs later than him to get an advantage, but thats only on small maps where ovies get there fast, like desert oasis)
Im skeptical that it would work. I think I beat this strat actually, cause I do remember his speedlings beat my initial attack once i found out he was lings/fast expo, but my 2nd attack just dominated him, once I had roach speed.
im unbeaten in ZvZ so far, and was top 8 in Platinum div 4 last time I played 1v1s (saturday) so next time I do a 1v1 sitting of games, ill see. Until I lose to it with my fast upgrade roaches, im skeptical speedlings is anything but another strat, def not "broken".
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As I said in another topic, +1 carapace roaches counters +1a speedlings, but yeah, overall, +1a speedlings are terribly underrated early game against roaches, they give you total map control.
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+1 carapace roaches make it harder for the speedling zerg but the roach player still has no ability to move around the map. If he does manage to keep you at bay by getting +1 armor all you have to do is add a third base and take him out by either more speedlings than he's capable of dealing with or going to mutas. The problem is the slow as sin roaches will get run by the moment they try to leave the base and suddenly the roach player has no economy and running off of 2/3 bases I've seen a zerg player just put literally 20 spine crawlers in their choke so they dont even have to worry about the roach player going all-in.
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seems like roaches replaced with zerglings. still broken. still needs fixing.
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Run-by? You just gotta leave 3-4 roaches at your choke and you're set.
The problem is that without the +1a advantage, the kill ratio for lings to kill a roach is about 5:1, roaches are just stronger in every way except for speed. Sure, the ling player can build 10 spine crawlers to defend his expo, but I don't see how investing 1500 minerals in static defense puts him ahead.
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A replay showing this off sure would help!
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This makes me think again of what the game would be like if overlords could pull themselves down to the creep. That would give zerg the ability to wall in fairly easily, blunting the power of early speedlings.
Anyway, what about spine crawlers? A spine crawler or two behind a line of unupgraded zerglings at your choke should give you a pretty strong defender advantage, especially if you have time to waddle your queen over there before the line breaks. Maybe narrow your choke with an evolution chamber?
Can you just not get that set up in time to defend? You'd need an early creep tumor, right?
(sorry, not in the beta, just guessing wildly here)
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Roaches + infestor is way better then trying to go mutalisk.
With all the chokes current maps have, its almost impossible to make insane surrounds
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I mean, what we're really talking about here is an imbalance between zerg attack and defense in the early game, right?
In the Starcraft style, there are few units in the early game, which tends to make the early game in mirror matches rather uninteresting. In a non-mirror match, it is possible for each faction to have only 2 unit choices, but still have a rock-scissors-paper things going on, which enhances the defender advantage (normally reinforcements will be a counter to the attacking units, if one is available, and the defender gets faster reinforcements). In a mirror match, if one of the units is a counter to the other, then it only makes sense to make the one that kicks the other's ass when you're attacking, meaning the defender has no superior counter-unit to produce.
If there is an answer to the early game ZvZ attack/defense imbalance, then it must lie in something other than the choice between zerglings or roaches, which is why I'm looking at the defensive structures and queen abilities.
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On March 30 2010 07:39 Funchucks wrote:
I mean, what we're really talking about here is an imbalance between zerg attack and defense in the early game, right?
In the Starcraft style, there are few units in the early game, which tends to make the early game in mirror matches rather uninteresting. In a non-mirror match, it is possible for each faction to have only 2 unit choices, but still have a rock-scissors-paper things going on, which enhances the defender advantage (normally reinforcements will be a counter to the attacking units, if one is available, and the defender gets faster reinforcements). In a mirror match, if one of the units is a counter to the other, then it only makes sense to make the one that kicks the other's ass when you're attacking, meaning the defender has no superior counter-unit to produce.
If there is an answer to the early game ZvZ attack/defense imbalance, then it must lie in something other than the choice between zerglings or roaches, which is why I'm looking at the defensive structures and queen abilities.
Its rather some maps being way 2 big, meaning if you start walking with 9 roaches while your opponent has 4 of them in his base ,before you get to his base he will have 10-12 ( plus next coming right away on the place of battle ). That forces rather defensive style, and thats exactly why ZvZ is such a shit.
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has anyone thought of going banelings? the most obvious hard-counter to zerglings in the entire game since banelings do exactly 35 damage to light? especially since they were buffed this patch? I play cheating AI's that go mass speedling with extra minerals and larva to make up for lack of micro, and banelings work wonders. 1 baneling vaporizes 5-6 lings easily
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What I want to say is, this is a hard problem for the designers to solve, due to the fast, aggressive nature of zerg, which inherently reduces defender advantage, and makes it less likely for the game to survive to the point where there is enough unit diversity full of rock-scissors-paper counters to make strategy interesting.
ZvZ ended up being the least interesting, most predictable SC1 matchup, with very little deviation from the basic strategy of hurrying to zerglings, then hurrying to mutalisk/scourge being feasible. The queen strikes me as an attempt to solve that, and I think the improved, movable defensive structures are another.
Are skilled players trying turtle ZvZ? Because I'd expect the designers to be trying to give you the tools to make that an option.
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Added replays in the OP: 2 games of me doing it, 2 games of Dimaga doign it, and a game of a korean zerg doing it in the most recent PlayXP tournament.
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I can't imagine this being true. All players I've played still go roaches as do I, and I've crushed every speedling build I've encountered. I'm aware many playres are better than me but then better players would also have better roach control. I'll take a look at the reps when I get off work.
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The main problem here is how fast zerg can power econ if they have map dominance for a while. I'd like to see this toned down across the board. Make the queen hatch 2 eggs on a hatchery, 3 on a lair, and 4 on a hive, or give the egg increases as upgrades at lair/hive. This will reward teching instead of punishing for it. Ofcourse this will unbalance the other match-ups, so there will need to be something added to zerg defense, but it might actually be alright because zerg can always just build another hatchery at your main like in sc:bw.
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On March 30 2010 07:52 Defrag wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 07:39 Funchucks wrote:
I mean, what we're really talking about here is an imbalance between zerg attack and defense in the early game, right?
In the Starcraft style, there are few units in the early game, which tends to make the early game in mirror matches rather uninteresting. In a non-mirror match, it is possible for each faction to have only 2 unit choices, but still have a rock-scissors-paper things going on, which enhances the defender advantage (normally reinforcements will be a counter to the attacking units, if one is available, and the defender gets faster reinforcements). In a mirror match, if one of the units is a counter to the other, then it only makes sense to make the one that kicks the other's ass when you're attacking, meaning the defender has no superior counter-unit to produce.
If there is an answer to the early game ZvZ attack/defense imbalance, then it must lie in something other than the choice between zerglings or roaches, which is why I'm looking at the defensive structures and queen abilities. Its rather some maps being way 2 big, meaning if you start walking with 9 roaches while your opponent has 4 of them in his base ,before you get to his base he will have 10-12 ( plus next coming right away on the place of battle ). That forces rather defensive style, and thats exactly why ZvZ is such a shit.
That doesn't sound like a problem to me, unless nothing shows up later in the game to break the defensive deadlock. It keeps scouting important. It makes strategic choices interesting (if your opponent's being defensive, then neglecting your own defenses will give you an economic/tech advantage).
You generally want to keep one player or the other from winning in the first few minutes, not as an impossibility (which would make the game less interesting), but as something that is fairly easy to prevent for someone of similar skill. That way the game has time to open up, and people get a chance to play with a bigger variety of units.
It could be that ZvZ has a very different character depending on the map size, and I don't see that as a terrible thing either, just an interesting topic for strategic discussion.
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dont tell the americans how to play zvz 
This strategy isnt out on american servers yet.
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On March 30 2010 08:07 _rdm_ wrote:dont tell the americans how to play zvz This strategy isnt out on american servers yet.
I'm an american zerg and I'm getting tired of winning by default just because they try to go roaches and with over 60% of my games being ZvZ on average it gets old after a while.
edit: Seriously to the doubters TRY IT like I said in the OP I gave you a BO use it and tell me it doesnt work then.
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United Kingdom10 Posts
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On March 30 2010 08:19 Korn wrote:
plz delete.
You said something about upgrading roaches with +1 attack to kill zerglings in 2 shots, rather than 3... why did you delete the post?
Not trying to be rude, just actually curious
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Maybe pumping some extra queens would help, you could also build a wall in with queens and spinecrawlers. Also, early queens help in denying scouting overlords at cliffs, and are a great tanking unit.
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I find Banelings to destroy pure lings even harder than marines...
Banelings are usually my response to Z's who make too many lings and they work well.
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I have also played this build in a fewgames, and it works pretty well. The only struggle I have is to find the optimal ratio of workers/zergling too build. You want to press the economic advantage you have for having an extra hatch, as well as being able to afford the upgrades ( if the games drags on, i like to go for a fast hive just for the 3/3 cracklings :D ). But if you dont pay attention, you 'migth' get overrun by roaches..
I used to go for a 1 base speedling rush to counter FE/Roach, but i feel that this build is stronger. I still need a little practice tho :p
Also, when a players decide to add banelings, then the game is just a world of fun. Speedlings can quite easely dodge blings, but a small mistake can cost you the game.
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It's an allin and not viable if scouted. Fast lair will completely dismantle this strategy, especially cause of burrow and roach speed. Ever seen lings try to kill a burrowed roach? They almost can't, even with +1. I think it might counter specific FE roach style builds on some maps but honestly it's a losing game if scouted in my experience.
Also once the roach ball gets big enough speedling really starts to suck because only so many can hit roaches at once, but all those roaches are gonna be firing at your lings. God forbid they get +1 attack and 2 shot lings. I might consider just getting that if I see no warren from now on because it's so funny to see lings fail so hard.
Also I'd like to point out that hydra completely rape mutaling so if you don't manage to kill him before muta are coming you can just start massing hydra and you'll still be in good shape vs anything he can make.
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United States7166 Posts
ffs what is wrong with like 98% of all zerg players?
nearly every player and poster ive encountered completely forgets about the only other tier 1 unit we have
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On March 30 2010 08:09 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 08:07 _rdm_ wrote:dont tell the americans how to play zvz This strategy isnt out on american servers yet. I'm an american zerg and I'm getting tired of winning by default just because they try to go roaches and with over 60% of my games being ZvZ on average it gets old after a while. edit: Seriously to the doubters TRY IT like I said in the OP I gave you a BO use it and tell me it doesnt work then.
6pooled
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On March 30 2010 08:55 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 08:09 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:On March 30 2010 08:07 _rdm_ wrote:dont tell the americans how to play zvz This strategy isnt out on american servers yet. I'm an american zerg and I'm getting tired of winning by default just because they try to go roaches and with over 60% of my games being ZvZ on average it gets old after a while. edit: Seriously to the doubters TRY IT like I said in the OP I gave you a BO use it and tell me it doesnt work then. 6pooled
lol xD, what map? Cuz you can switch to a 14 pool usually with that build.
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United States7166 Posts
ffs are you still talking about this build when banelings crush it? w/o switching to roaches you'll always lose to roach/baneling attack.
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I watched the replays. While the idea has promise, there is one thing I didn't see in any of the replays you posted (btw, 2 of them are ling/ling battles which really is not the point of the discussion).
There was no focus firing from the roaches. In every early battle I saw, the roaches were just firing into the swarm, which is a serious waste of attacks. Even 3 roaches can kill a ling in one hit, which lowers your DPS quickly.
I'm not discounting the tactic, I would be thrilled to see lings being made more viable but I need to see some good roach use before I say that lings can flat out beat them.
Also, what the reps may show better than ling vs roach is the power of FE in zvz. There's nothing to say someone could not 14 hatch and then go lings to transition into roaches. Or even mix roach and ling armies (a few roaches to tank, while the ling surround).
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its tricky stuff.
if u go faster pool u can get queen faster and compensate the second hatchery with inject larve for awhile and get second queen ready as your second hatchery finishes.
And if u go hatchery first then pool then the queen is signifcally delayed.
So this isnt clear whether hatch first ->pool first when comparing larva production.
I personally favor pool first as it gives more flexibility.
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Lots of maps got tiny chokes
Roach > banes/lings
Banes > lings
Speedlings > mapcontrol and if your oppo fucks up you can raze their base.
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Didn't work, zerg went banelings and they owned lings so I had to swtich to muta roaches and won.
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Banelings are a pretty good counter, however it can turn into a micro battle as you can send in a single speedling and take out a baneling.
Players I have encountered that have beat me when I went speedlings won by keeping all of their roaches at their drones with a single spine crawler and severely limiting my ability to surround anything. From this point it's easy for them to mass and tech.
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that's cool, since I love zerglings. This build will open up more interesting counters in ZvZ.
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This is way more interesting than pure roach.
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On March 30 2010 09:33 rrowland wrote:
Banelings are a pretty good counter, however it can turn into a micro battle as you can send in a single speedling and take out a baneling.
Players I have encountered that have beat me when I went speedlings won by keeping all of their roaches at their drones with a single spine crawler and severely limiting my ability to surround anything. From this point it's easy for them to mass and tech.
This. To me it seems like the best way to play zvsz is 10pool then mass ling expand with 1 gas running and see what hes doing. If he builds lings too make banelings if he goes roaches and stays in his base drone up yourself, make spine crawler and get a roach warren so your ahead with your expo. Thats what works for me at least.
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Just a thought but wouldn't banelings stomp mass speedlings?
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On March 30 2010 10:31 Tinithor wrote:
Just a thought but wouldn't banelings stomp mass speedlings?
Seems to depend on micro. It can be brutally effective, but you need to get the splash working for you against faster units.
I think the more the experience level rises, the less effective banelings alone will be against zerglings alone, but I'm not going to hazard any guesses about the potential of sophisticated mixed-unit tactics including banelings.
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if you know its coming in time banelings hard counter it. if you dont know whats coming and just play safe roaches still beat it. only way its freewin is if you're playing someone who isnt aware that you can make speedlings.
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On March 30 2010 08:57 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 08:55 Saracen wrote:On March 30 2010 08:09 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:On March 30 2010 08:07 _rdm_ wrote:dont tell the americans how to play zvz This strategy isnt out on american servers yet. I'm an american zerg and I'm getting tired of winning by default just because they try to go roaches and with over 60% of my games being ZvZ on average it gets old after a while. edit: Seriously to the doubters TRY IT like I said in the OP I gave you a BO use it and tell me it doesnt work then. 6pooled lol xD, what map? Cuz you can switch to a 14 pool usually with that build.
Kulas Ravine. Takes forever to scout
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Isn't hatch 1st kind of vulnerable to a 10 pool opening? I see people struggle against my 10 pool when they 1 base it.
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Also, I have seen this seemingly bad mutalisk build mentionned quite a few times. Why mutalisks? There's no way they can pay for themselves. Corruptors on the other hand actually endure ong enough to corrupt that hatch (stops larva injection for a while, giving you a massive timing advantage) or that Evo (again, stops +1 upgrades that are heavily dependant on timing).
And of course, they kill lords faster than mutas do, which are much more valuable than minerals in ZvZ due to it being a mirror match (where their build time will actually mess things up quite badly).
IMO this has to be much stronger than mutalisks for obvious reasons. The weak point is actually their movement speed, and there's got to be some good way to stall.. banelings seem to me like the perfect answer.
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I just played a series of ZvZs against a friend of mine who also plays Zerg. He's around #20 gold, I'm around #50 platinum, so neither of us are top players but neither of us are scrubs.
I tried various strats to hold 2 bases against 2 base mass speedlings without massing speedlings myself. This included traditional roaches, roach with baneling, and ling/baneling. No matter what I tried, the masslings ran circles around my units (unupgraded banes are embarassingly slow) and steadily killed anything not protected by roaches or banelings, while picking off lone roaches.
Surprisingly, even ling/bane was weaker than pure lings. While I could beat a pure ling army in a straight fight, banes are so slow that I was stuck on defense, which surrendered complete map control. It felt like being muta contained, but by lings!
However, two things seem like they can beat mass speedlings.
1) A 6-8 pool cheese rush will win easily. I hate cheese rushes though.
2) Staying on 1 base until you have a large number of roaches, then taking a 2nd base and defending with roaches. Depending on map, you can either block the choke with roaches and leave 2-3 in your Drone line to catch any that run-through, or simply keep 10 roaches and a queen in each Drone line.
#2 is risky if he goes mutas while keeping speedlings near your base for a backstab. While mutas will not kill 20 roaches before they destroy your base, muta+speedling will win the base-trade easily, especially if it comes down to Extractor hiding.
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i just tried this strategy and raped the kid with pure zerglings
he called me a noob and that "massing zerglings isn't skill" and rage quit the game
so then I message him right away and get this gem:
edit:
here's replay
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0fr5ga
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Burrowed banelings may be a good counter to ling harrasment. Place a a few banelings near a choke, leave a ling or two just to delay his force and have them clump then set off the baneling.
However, that requires more tech so it may not be viable enough.
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On March 30 2010 11:58 FiercE wrote:i just tried this strategy and raped the kid with pure zerglings he called me a noob and that "massing zerglings isn't skill" and rage quit the game so then I message him right away and get this gem: edit: here's replay http://www.sendspace.com/file/0fr5ga
Hahaha that's me!
I said it was a build order win.
I watched the rep like 3 times and added it to my list to look out for.
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On March 30 2010 07:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:Build Order - 14 Hatch at natural
- 14 Pool
- 16 Gas
- Zergling speed on 100 gas
- ZERGLINGS
- +1 melee attacks on 100 gas
- MORE ZERGLINGS from 2 queens
If you're going to give a build order, imo it'd be nice to give one that actually works. You can't get +1 melee without an evo (presumably you want to build the evo so it finishes right when you'd start researching +1? When is that? What's the queen timing?).
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On March 30 2010 12:15 RoieTRS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 11:58 FiercE wrote:i just tried this strategy and raped the kid with pure zerglings he called me a noob and that "massing zerglings isn't skill" and rage quit the game so then I message him right away and get this gem: edit: here's replay http://www.sendspace.com/file/0fr5ga Hahaha that's me! I said it was a build order win. I watched the rep like 3 times and added it to my list to look out for.
you didn't have to be such an asshole after the loss... -_-
anyways, you didn't scout
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just tried this... holy crap does this work
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I just played a few games like this, ended each with something like 100+ Zerglings. One question though - how many Drones do you get, roughly? I find on two hatch/two queen I'm accumulating more minerals than I can spend so I'm assuming I'm building too many but I'd like to hear what other people use.
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On March 30 2010 11:50 Piousflea wrote:
....
Surprisingly, even ling/bane was weaker than pure lings. While I could beat a pure ling army in a straight fight, banes are so slow that I was stuck on defense, which surrendered complete map control. It felt like being muta contained, but by lings!
...
I dont believe this. you can easily move up to his base with some lings, put them out of sight somewhere and morph half to banelings. now he cant attack you and you move them in his peonline. Like someone already said only way to kill banelings with speedlings is only move in very few and try to get them to explode, this is nearly impossible if you are being attacked and have to react imho.
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On March 30 2010 12:19 crate wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 07:08 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:Build Order - 14 Hatch at natural
- 14 Pool
- 16 Gas
- Zergling speed on 100 gas
- ZERGLINGS
- +1 melee attacks on 100 gas
- MORE ZERGLINGS from 2 queens
If you're going to give a build order, imo it'd be nice to give one that actually works. You can't get +1 melee without an evo (presumably you want to build the evo so it finishes right when you'd start researching +1? When is that? What's the queen timing?).
Once the zerglings are out I can't give supply numbers because you will lose supply while scouting and engaging with roaches try thinking before you're rude and obviously if you see +1 melee attack on 100 gas you know you'll have to build the evo chamber early play with the timing it doesn't have to be perfect.
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Dont think the other matchups are well balanced. Spawn larva let the zerg keep up in production + enough larva to mine as fast as the other races.
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I like the points behind this build against Z.
Gives you stronger scouting and map control. (Reduces chances of cheese)
A mineral/economy advantage. (Less drones in gas if you delay +1)
The disadvantage would have to be the level of micro required to not botch it though. Lings need to attack in the right places, at the right times, and perform surrounds to be effective.
That being said, it opens up room for a lot more flavor in ZvZ, potential transitions to banelings, which would likely be great micro mechanics, similiar to scourge/muta in sc1. I do think that with proper micro, banelings do not quite hard counter mass ling, due to their speed. 1 ling set to attack a baneling leads to 3 scenarios.
Zergling kills baneling.
Baneling explodes and both die.
Opponent's zerglings kill your zergling before the baneling dies.
It feels like it would play out much like archon/muta in sc1, where archons do amazing damage to muta balls, but find it difficult to make it into range.
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I just played 2 matches ZvZ and roughly used this build. I have to say I really like it. The pace felt much faster than any other match up and was much more enjoyable than Roach Vs Roach.
What exactly are you suppose to do if your opponent 10 pools (or less)? I just happened to get lucky and spawned close to him on lost temple. Enough so that I skipped the hatch and just stayed on once base to get my pool out.
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this build only beats newbies who don't have a sense of what a timing push should be. i've never lost to this build ever and i've had it done to me several times. i push before your expo really kicks in and you lose every time and your +1 comes in way too late to even matter.
the only way this build ever wins is with a back stab/elimination race but i usually sneak a drone out with my roach army and slip it to his base and make a spine crawler or take a gas.
ZvZ is absolutely broken among other things....
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I'm only in gold, but my definition of "newbie" doesn't include high gold, low platinum players. Which is what I've used this a couple times against.
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woah... are you saying ppl will skip hydras, with speedlings and go straight to muta? WOAH I never heard of such a thing in ZvZ.
I reckon eventually all the ZvZ will be like ling + muta just like SC1. RIP scourge + muta aerial battle T-T
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unless your banelings are killing on average 4+ zerglings each time they explode, its not really worth it.
it sort of reminds me of the "bat riders countering gargoyles" in warcraft3. sure they exploded and killed gargs, but gargs were SOOO cheap, it just didn't matter.
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tried this tonight
after last night being SO FED UP WITH ZvZ. i decide to try fresh tonight and lol at the results
i played 3 games so far and all ZvZ. does everyone on the god damn ladder play Zerg? seriously? im playing like 90% ZvZs in the last couple of days.
anyway. rushing speedings with +1 attack decimates roaches. i generally do a timing attack right as speed finishes (if hes going speedling i hope mine was faster. catching him off guard. otherwise i'll catch him with 3-6 roaches and thats easy to kill) i generally can't finish him with this attack however. a second push comes at the +1 attack. which generally ends the game as i can just pump lings and rally them into his faster faster than he can make roaches.
now. what i actually like about this build. is it's viable to go muta after ling just like in brood war. but you dont rush spire like in BW (or maybe we will in time when people stop trying to use roaches in ZvZ)
i dont have an exact build order.
but the general idea is simply
14-hatch
14-pool
13-gas
15/16-overlord
get a ling or two. get atleast one queen. i try to get 2 (1 at main, 1 at nat)
pump lings from main (nat if you feel like hes rushing or something, otherwise just drones there)
100 gas - ling speed
put down a evo chamber soon after. you want to start +1 attack as soon as your next 100 gas (unsure of the exact timing of this, im not heaps pro. just a low-platinum-player)
now you should be able to safely build drones off your natural and pump zerglings from your main. attack at ling speed and again at +1 attack
some people like to take drones off gas after they have both researching. i leave them in and try to get lair as soon as the next 100 gas and then a spire
after dropping spire i throw up 3 gas (1 at main and 2 at nat) giving me 4 gas. minerals should be decently saturated.
then just pump muta/ling
get +2 attack if you feel like it. or +1 carapace it's all upto you
3 REPLAYS
heres replays showing it. i really only went for the spire on the Steppes of War game. as this is the first time i was trying it. my opponent tried to turtle in and go hydras? i guess he wanted to go roach/hydra (against lings? who knows why. he probably saw my mutas but still hydras would be horrible to counter mutaling. i dunno)
replays might not have been up against best of the best and no-one tried to counter me with banelings. but even still the baneling counter to me. you'd have to scout mass ling very early and be ready for it. as like i've stated. you can get a lair/spire out fairly easily and not be behind in army/econ (infact you should be ahead since you can expand extremly safely and deny him from expanding)
anyway. i know most people see this as just going from mass roach wars to mass ling wars. but ATLEAST. with this strategy you can move onto mutas at the very least. you wont see 30 minute long building gigantic amounts of roaches just because you need more roaches than he does. waiting for that moment when he tries to go hydras so you can step on him with your number advantage.
*EDIT*
i should note this build gets decimated by 6 pool or any type of cheese early all in rush
(i didn't proof read this or anything. kinda rambling i know. but this is my 2 cents.)
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so this is what you do, get speed, burrow, and +1 attack on roaches (so they 2 hit lings). In this order. Keep massing up roaches at your ramp, get a bling nest. Make a few lings (6 or so), possibly place a crawler in your mineral line. Burrow some blings around the crawler and places where the lings will jam up, under you queen etc.
Really the only threat when dealing with mass speedlings is the counter attack, and even after they do that they can do a bit of damage and return to defend since they are so much faster than roaches. But if you want to, bring a few blings with your roach army. Like seriously, only 2 is all you need if you've been massing roaches.
PS- if he's still on tier 1 and/or has no detection, it's not a bad idea to get burrow movement. Not only does it allow you to sneak attack upon completion, but it lets your roaches that got overwhelmed just burrow away and heal in the process. And ofc, lings can't surround them anymore.
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replay? 
it's not hard to constantly downsize his roaches and most players will try a early rush with 2-4 roaches when they notice your FE. those of which get destroyed by early lings. this build also lets you get quite fast mutas.
i guess there would be a specific timing window for roaches. enough of them when the spire first pops (maybe abit before then?)
and like people have said. if you see banelings you can set them off with a small portion of your ling army
either strat is up in the air i guess.
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Seems very easy to fix without unbalancing the rest of the game. Make lings run slower on opponents creep, that way you could micro the roaches to defend. And thus the attacker would lose his advantage.
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On March 30 2010 19:13 Paladia wrote:
Seems very easy to fix without unbalancing the rest of the game. Make lings run slower on opponents creep, that way you could micro the roaches to defend. And thus the attacker would lose his advantage.
Then you'd have to have "opponent's creep". The concept doesn't exist in any version of Starcraft.
Ground has either got creep on it or not. Nobody owns the creep.
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On March 30 2010 19:17 Funchucks wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 19:13 Paladia wrote:
Seems very easy to fix without unbalancing the rest of the game. Make lings run slower on opponents creep, that way you could micro the roaches to defend. And thus the attacker would lose his advantage. Then you'd have to have "opponent's creep". The concept doesn't exist in any version of Starcraft. Ground has either got creep on it or not. Nobody owns the creep. Well, if it fixes it and makes the game more interesting in ZvZ I'm all for it. Lots of bigger concepts were reinvented with BW, such as merging Protoss and Zerg, Ghost and Zerg (Kerrigan) and so on. Even the DT (which was suppose to hate the Protoss) somehow managed to join the fight.
Even the Warp Gates (which were all destroyed in BW) managed to somehow be in SC2, so I doubt adding opponent creep would ruin any great concept.
ZvZ is completely messed up in terms of lore to begin with (as the zerg shares one mind).
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ZvZ is completely messed up in terms of lore to begin with (as the zerg shares one mind).
not since the overmind fell
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i won a lot of games against zerglings with fast +1 attack roaches ->2hits for a ling.
maybe my opponents sucked. do you think this is not working against good players?
i upgraded it very early with about my first 100 gas. so i should be able to attack before he has +1 on his lings.
or maybe double upgraded and attack a bit later?
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On March 30 2010 19:06 CharlieMurphy wrote:
so this is what you do, get speed, burrow, and +1 attack on roaches (so they 2 hit lings). In this order. Keep massing up roaches at your ramp, get a bling nest. Make a few lings (6 or so), possibly place a crawler in your mineral line. Burrow some blings around the crawler and places where the lings will jam up, under you queen etc.
Really the only threat when dealing with mass speedlings is the counter attack, and even after they do that they can do a bit of damage and return to defend since they are so much faster than roaches. But if you want to, bring a few blings with your roach army. Like seriously, only 2 is all you need if you've been massing roaches.
PS- if he's still on tier 1 and/or has no detection, it's not a bad idea to get burrow movement. Not only does it allow you to sneak attack upon completion, but it lets your roaches that got overwhelmed just burrow away and heal in the process. And ofc, lings can't surround them anymore.
+1 carapace is just better agaisnt lings, considering the other player could just go double upgrades melee/carapace agaisnt +1 range roaches. But there's absolutely nothing he can do against +1 carapace roaches, except building roaches himself.
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On March 30 2010 20:11 lepape wrote:
+1 carapace is just better agaisnt lings, considering the other player could just go double upgrades melee/carapace agaisnt +1 range roaches. But there's absolutely nothing he can do against +1 carapace roaches, except building roaches himself.
thats wrong. +1attack on lings will negate the +1 carap on the roaches. its just the same as +1 carap on lings vs +1 attack on roaches.
so the question is, if lings have no upgrade, is +1 attack or +1 carap on roaches better?
+1 attack -> 2 hits instead of 3 hits
+1 carap -> 2dmg instead of 3? (dont know the numbers exactly)
That would look quite equal. i would say +1 attack is a little bit better because of range -> roaches attack first.
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On March 30 2010 20:28 Werezerg wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 20:11 lepape wrote:
+1 carapace is just better agaisnt lings, considering the other player could just go double upgrades melee/carapace agaisnt +1 range roaches. But there's absolutely nothing he can do against +1 carapace roaches, except building roaches himself.
thats wrong. +1attack on lings will negate the +1 carap on the roaches. its just the same as +1 carap on lings vs +1 attack on roaches. so the question is, if lings have no upgrade, is +1 attack or +1 carap on roaches better? +1 attack -> 2 hits instead of 3 hits +1 carap -> 2dmg instead of 3? (dont know the numbers exactly) That would look quite equal. i would say +1 attack is a little bit better because of range -> roaches attack first.
It's the other way around. +1 carapace negates +1 attack on zerglings, thus making them completely useless, except for sneak attacks.
If lings have no upgrade, you don't even need any upgrade on your roaches, they own zerlings by default.
If you go +1a roaches and he goes +1/+1 zerglings, he's still stronger than you.
If you go +1c roaches and he goes +1/+1 zerglings, you're way ahead.
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i m a low platinum zerg and yesterday i countered the map control gained by speedlings with nydus near his base splitting my roaches, half to my choke and half to his base. I used two gases to fast lair while pumping roaches to my choke. Then burrow (optional) and nydus. It worked for me because the speedlings were near my base and tried to counter when he saw my roaches to his min line. I can upload the rep if someone is interested. Also the nudys helps to save the drones if they force their way into your main.
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OP you haven't commented on banelings at all. I'd like to hear how you think your speedling build fares against a roach build with a few added banelings.
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On March 30 2010 19:34 MavercK wrote:Show nested quote +ZvZ is completely messed up in terms of lore to begin with (as the zerg shares one mind). not since the overmind fell Then Kerrigan took control instead (of about half), torwards the end of BW she had pretty much complete control. The parts she didn't control would not have the same mutations, so they would not have the new units added in SC2.
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doesn't really matter
but lore wise there can still be rogue strains of zerg out there so it's good enough.
anyway back on topic.
banelings probably are a good counter. but i feel people will work out this build properly (by that i mean getting spire up as soon as speed/+1/lair is done) and then upgraded roaches and banelings wont help you at all. then you'll still be behind because you've spent all your gas on roaches and banelings.
i guess we shall see.
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On March 30 2010 20:33 lepape wrote:
It's the other way around. +1 carapace negates +1 attack on zerglings, thus making them completely useless, except for sneak attacks.
If lings have no upgrade, you don't even need any upgrade on your roaches, they own zerlings by default.
If you go +1a roaches and he goes +1/+1 zerglings, he's still stronger than you.
If you go +1c roaches and he goes +1/+1 zerglings, you're way ahead.
no its both ways. +1 carap negates +1 attack on lings, thats right. but its the same way with +1attack on roaches and +1carap on lings. in both cases the upgrades negates each other.
i admit you are completely right with the effect of double upgrading. the carap upgrades always have effect and the attack upgrade can be completely negated. but it still has some uses, if you upgrade +2 weapon he will need +3 armor to negate it.
and a good ling zerg would upgrade the carapace up only if he sees your +attack up i guess. otherwise he will just upgrade +2 attack, since +1armor on lings is useless if roaches have no attack up.
and you think roaches are > lings by default? well the op is obviously a very different opinion.
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The OP talks about +1a speedlings, and this whole subjects is about +1a speedlings actually. Because in fact, you need a ratio of about 5:1 unupgraded speedlings to kill roaches in large numbers, they're simply not cost effective without +1.
+1a roaches are a nice counter, but not as effective as +1 carapace, because it dominates even double upgrades zerglings. That's all.
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+1 attack on roaches is better than +1 carapace.
Reason: You will always try to keep your roaches in tight areas and clumped so that all roaches can attack at the same time and lings can't hit all of them at once. Carapace would only give an advantage to the roaches that are under attack. Attack gives an advantage to all roaches. Incoming zerglings partly die before they can even hit once.
Together with proper building placement +1 attack also helps more in defending counter attacks, plus it creates a larger threat in the case that the ling player tries to initiate an elimination race.
+1 attack is cheaper as well.
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On March 30 2010 21:59 spinesheath wrote:
+1 attack on roaches is better than +1 carapace.
Reason: You will always try to keep your roaches in tight areas and clumped so that all roaches can attack at the same time and lings can't hit all of them at once. Carapace would only give an advantage to the roaches that are under attack. Attack gives an advantage to all roaches. Incoming zerglings partly die before they can even hit once.
Together with proper building placement +1 attack also helps more in defending counter attacks, plus it creates a larger threat in the case that the ling player tries to initiate an elimination race.
+1 attack is cheaper as well.
What about +1a roaches against 1/1 lings?
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On March 30 2010 19:35 Werezerg wrote:
i won a lot of games against zerglings with fast +1 attack roaches ->2hits for a ling.
maybe my opponents sucked. do you think this is not working against good players?
i upgraded it very early with about my first 100 gas. so i should be able to attack before he has +1 on his lings.
Wouldn't this fail to the first ling attack ( with speed only, no +1a) as you will only have very few roaches to defend ? Or if your very early evo+roach warden is scouted, you could die to a even earlier attack ( before speed)
I think the timing for the upgrade as the 'roach player' is very important as you have less gas than the 'speedling' player.
I also think than +1c is better than +1a for roaches, at least against me because i tend to go +1/+1 before +2/+0. ( I tech to lair just after starting then carapace upg, then add a 2nd evo and more gas).
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This is like Kwanro's dream build 0_0.
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After checking the replays in the first post in this thread I tried this myself. The problem for me is when the other zerg player is going pure roaches, not starting off with zerglings for early defense. This means he will have 12 roaches in my base at around 6.30 - 7.00, with 4 more coming 30sec later, where I do not have the required ~40 +0/+0 zerglings to take it down.
If I dont want to lose my exp and lost half my zergling production capacity I need to defeat this attack. (The +1 attack is not yet finished at this time, not for me neither on the replays in the first post).
After watching some of my replays to find out if there was some window where I had forces and he hadn´t to explore a really early rush with my first 8? 10? zerglings I found out that there are pretty much none. If I take my first zerglings and run for it (without speed at this point) I will arrive at around when his first set of 3-4 roaches pop out and I will be decimated.
Replay: http://www.mediafire.com/?mxmxjijmtnl
(Im losing an overlord to his queen cause Im bad, but even with it I dont think I would have survived his first attack)
Would really appreciate tips to help counter this.
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On March 30 2010 22:15 Tyrran wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 19:35 Werezerg wrote:
i won a lot of games against zerglings with fast +1 attack roaches ->2hits for a ling.
maybe my opponents sucked. do you think this is not working against good players?
i upgraded it very early with about my first 100 gas. so i should be able to attack before he has +1 on his lings.
Wouldn't this fail to the first ling attack ( with speed only, no +1a) as you will only have very few roaches to defend ? Or if your very early evo+roach warden is scouted, you could die to a even earlier attack ( before speed) I think the timing for the upgrade as the 'roach player' is very important as you have less gas than the 'speedling' player. I also think than +1c is better than +1a for roaches, at least against me because i tend to go +1/+1 before +2/+0. ( I tech to lair just after starting then carapace upg, then add a 2nd evo and more gas).
1 ling zerg tried this, i had about 6 roaches at this time, he had maybe 26 lings. i had my roaches in my eco line and attack with eco+queen and roaches as soon as he run in, i easily defeated his lings, and took the game. maybe a faster attack would have been more successful.
with +1attack vs +1 armor on roaches, i think +1attack is better for timing push because ling zerg will not have 1/1 here. probably he will have 0/0.
+1 carap will be better for a bit longer macro game with expansion. but i prefer the timing push, because the ling player could use mutalisks and own me or pump drones faster than me and have better eco+faster expansion..
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If I see a really uber-early roach bust (with like the first 7 roaches or so) I'll plop down a few Spine Crawlers when I see him leaving his base. They won't be up quite in time for the initial attack but if you hold him off with your lings long enough you're good. Then you're next set of inject larvaes turn into lings and you counter.
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On March 30 2010 22:12 lepape wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 21:59 spinesheath wrote:
+1 attack on roaches is better than +1 carapace.
Reason: You will always try to keep your roaches in tight areas and clumped so that all roaches can attack at the same time and lings can't hit all of them at once. Carapace would only give an advantage to the roaches that are under attack. Attack gives an advantage to all roaches. Incoming zerglings partly die before they can even hit once.
Together with proper building placement +1 attack also helps more in defending counter attacks, plus it creates a larger threat in the case that the ling player tries to initiate an elimination race.
+1 attack is cheaper as well.
What about +1a roaches against 1/1 lings?
You'll obviously tech to lair at 50% of +1 attacks and tech straight to +2 attacks. If you get +1 at the timing I do it will be done quite a bit before the ling player's +1. Your +2 will probably even be almost done when he gets +1/+1. Early double upgrades are a huge investment (150 more gas equals 150-200 less minerals, together with drone + evo that's around 300 minerals). And in case you get some scouting done you can just get the carapace upgrade too.
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On March 30 2010 21:59 spinesheath wrote:
+1 attack on roaches is better than +1 carapace.
Reason: You will always try to keep your roaches in tight areas and clumped so that all roaches can attack at the same time and lings can't hit all of them at once. Carapace would only give an advantage to the roaches that are under attack.
By that logic, +1 attack only gives you a damage boost on the lings that you are attacking while +1 armor gives a damage nerf to their entire ling army. Really, the two are equivalent on that point -- either lings die faster or roaches die faster (if only buying one upgrade). I agree with the rest though, such as attack giving extra free ling kills before they close to melee.
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This build seems real nice and solid, I've actually been wondering about investigating speedling builds for expo purposes. However, 2 issues I see:
If the opponent went 10 pool, you're dead as stated in the OP. At least with a 13 pool opening you will survive a 10 pool.
Also, that spiel about keeping the roach z in base is true, but I question the time frame. I have faced speedling expo zvz before, but it really doesn't take long for me to break out going speedroach sans lair, keeping enough roaches at home to defend the backstab. The number of ling that are produced are a huge drone cutting investment on the ling Z side and the recovery timing seems really harsh since that's just about when roach Z can just roll out. Mind you, this instance was on scrap station with that longass path.
I don't know how +1 speedlings would pan out, though, in terms of timing and killing power. I do know that plain speedlings get denied by a relatively small number of roaches + queen at home.
Perhaps a quicker roach transition with possible spine crawler support on the speedling side and an earlier pool for security?
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I tried this, but my opponent walled himself in with roaches and made tons of workers and spore crawlers for defense against mutalisks. Even tho he didn't have any expansions he produced units fine as fuck.
Now lings were useless.
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Has anyone tried FE and use the buffed spine crawlers yet? I know it probably will get owned by 10-11 pool but what about 13pool roach? If this works, you can probably get a huge economy up while keeping your opponent in his base with speedlings.
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On March 30 2010 23:50 spinesheath wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 22:12 lepape wrote:On March 30 2010 21:59 spinesheath wrote:
+1 attack on roaches is better than +1 carapace.
Reason: You will always try to keep your roaches in tight areas and clumped so that all roaches can attack at the same time and lings can't hit all of them at once. Carapace would only give an advantage to the roaches that are under attack. Attack gives an advantage to all roaches. Incoming zerglings partly die before they can even hit once.
Together with proper building placement +1 attack also helps more in defending counter attacks, plus it creates a larger threat in the case that the ling player tries to initiate an elimination race.
+1 attack is cheaper as well.
What about +1a roaches against 1/1 lings? You'll obviously tech to lair at 50% of +1 attacks and tech straight to +2 attacks. If you get +1 at the timing I do it will be done quite a bit before the ling player's +1. Your +2 will probably even be almost done when he gets +1/+1. Early double upgrades are a huge investment (150 more gas equals 150-200 less minerals, together with drone + evo that's around 300 minerals). And in case you get some scouting done you can just get the carapace upgrade too.
I was talking about double evos upgrades here, not one upgrade after the other.
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On March 31 2010 06:59 lepape wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 23:50 spinesheath wrote:On March 30 2010 22:12 lepape wrote:On March 30 2010 21:59 spinesheath wrote:
+1 attack on roaches is better than +1 carapace.
Reason: You will always try to keep your roaches in tight areas and clumped so that all roaches can attack at the same time and lings can't hit all of them at once. Carapace would only give an advantage to the roaches that are under attack. Attack gives an advantage to all roaches. Incoming zerglings partly die before they can even hit once.
Together with proper building placement +1 attack also helps more in defending counter attacks, plus it creates a larger threat in the case that the ling player tries to initiate an elimination race.
+1 attack is cheaper as well.
What about +1a roaches against 1/1 lings? You'll obviously tech to lair at 50% of +1 attacks and tech straight to +2 attacks. If you get +1 at the timing I do it will be done quite a bit before the ling player's +1. Your +2 will probably even be almost done when he gets +1/+1. Early double upgrades are a huge investment (150 more gas equals 150-200 less minerals, together with drone + evo that's around 300 minerals). And in case you get some scouting done you can just get the carapace upgrade too. I was talking about double evos upgrades here, not one upgrade after the other.
Even then you're getting a later pool (still talking about fe into lings I guess?), later gas, spend your first 100 gas on ling speed and probably don't get a second geysir. It'll take a while until you get that second upgrade running.
I do 13 pool, 15 gas, first 100 gas into +1 ranged. +2 ideally starts right after +1 finished. +1 ranged thus always is done faster than +1 melee. You should easily be able to sit back and defend during the small timing window where +1/+1 is done and +2 isn't. I haven't had such a case yet though.
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I have to confess, I was interested by this post. I used to think about going glings in ZvZ, so I read this one carefully. And then I tried your BO, and yes it worked, but still... wasn't too sure about the "Glings rule everything so the game is soooo bad, ZvZ will be only tier1 units, I want to die" and so on. I even watched your stream today, but wasn't really amazed by the level of your opponents.
My feeling about this "Zerglings rule ZvZ" is the following : I used to think, few days ago that the ZvP was easy, and that was right. Going glings in ZvP used to be the way to easywin all my matchs. But come on, no one knew how to create a zerlingproof base. Just a matter of time, in my opinion, and everyone will find a way to counter zerglings. Now that I have a nice building placement in PvZ, in never loose to any glings strategy. The one/two canons are simply indestructible, unless you kill a forge or a gateway first, and the counter timing attack with +1zealots is too powerful for the Z to handle. It works so well that I'm now always winning against a Z going zerglings, as I used to always win with this particular strategy in ZvP. Ironic, don't you think ? I do feel it will be the same very soon in ZvZ (glings vs roaches) : Spine crawlers have been nicely buffed, and having a nice simcity as a Zerg isn't that hard to get either. So don't worry you'll loose to roaches again, and maybe (hopefully) to some new strategies.
And come on, don't create some thread showing "how the hell I'm just too good" as well as streaming. At least without stream, I could have imagine that was right.
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On March 30 2010 22:38 Thiria wrote:After checking the replays in the first post in this thread I tried this myself. The problem for me is when the other zerg player is going pure roaches, not starting off with zerglings for early defense. This means he will have 12 roaches in my base at around 6.30 - 7.00, with 4 more coming 30sec later, where I do not have the required ~40 +0/+0 zerglings to take it down. If I dont want to lose my exp and lost half my zergling production capacity I need to defeat this attack. (The +1 attack is not yet finished at this time, not for me neither on the replays in the first post). After watching some of my replays to find out if there was some window where I had forces and he hadn´t to explore a really early rush with my first 8? 10? zerglings I found out that there are pretty much none. If I take my first zerglings and run for it (without speed at this point) I will arrive at around when his first set of 3-4 roaches pop out and I will be decimated. Replay: http://www.mediafire.com/?mxmxjijmtnl(Im losing an overlord to his queen cause Im bad, but even with it I dont think I would have survived his first attack) Would really appreciate tips to help counter this.
Even though this guy only has 1 post, I'm going to say it's a hell of a first post cause he's pretty spot on. Any time I see speedling FE I push out as such, careful to not lose any roaches if possible, and just force him to make lings, not drones. Basically you can abuse range and better hp to snipe some lings and run back and forth and contain. Eventually you get to a critical point of roaches where you can just overpower him. If he tries to backstab with lings you can use your roaches you just produced to keep you from dying, and completely overrun his front and win. If he tries to tech to muta you can overrun him and win.
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On March 31 2010 07:24 Titilisk wrote:
I have to confess, I was interested by this post. I used to think about going glings in ZvZ, so I read this one carefully. And then I tried your BO, and yes it worked, but still... wasn't too sure about the "Glings rule everything so the game is soooo bad, ZvZ will be only tier1 units, I want to die" and so on. I even watched your stream today, but wasn't really amazed by the level of your opponents.
My feeling about this "Zerglings rule ZvZ" is the following : I used to think, few days ago that the ZvP was easy, and that was right. Going glings in ZvP used to be the way to easywin all my matchs. But come on, no one knew how to create a zerlingproof base. Just a matter of time, in my opinion, and everyone will find a way to counter zerglings. Now that I have a nice building placement in PvZ, in never loose to any glings strategy. The one/two canons are simply indestructible, unless you kill a forge or a gateway first, and the counter timing attack with +1zealots is too powerful for the Z to handle. It works so well that I'm now always winning against a Z going zerglings, as I used to always win with this particular strategy in ZvP. Ironic, don't you think ? I do feel it will be the same very soon in ZvZ (glings vs roaches) : Spine crawlers have been nicely buffed, and having a nice simcity as a Zerg isn't that hard to get either. So don't worry you'll loose to roaches again, and maybe (hopefully) to some new strategies.
And come on, don't create some thread showing "how the hell I'm just too good" as well as streaming. At least without stream, I could have imagine that was right.
This isnt some brag thread about how I'm so awesome yada yada I only need to use lings, the point is I'm not the best player in the world and with someone on the top levels of play with really good mechanics abusing this it gets much harder to stop. I was playing around with it some more today and the spine crawler buff both helps/hurts this build because if you're in trouble vs roaches the crawlers hold them back much easier but at he same time if your opponent throws up a few crawlers they do a lot more damage to your zerglings since they do more damage and fire faster now.
So I think that helps fix this partly but theres still a point where if I didn't just eff up the build early I can get in kill his queen pick off some drones and then pull back with the majority of my speedlings and still be safe while defending my expo. Keep scouting him very well wait to see when they expand and then you attack either still with lings or switching to roaches or hydras. Most of the time it doesn't even get that far though.
Like I said the static defense buffs will help fix this slightly but it also helps the player going zerglings holding off the first big roach push.
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Even with the buff, spines are still MUCH better against roaches than against lings.
20 damage took 2 hits to kill a ling, 25 damage takes two hits. 20 damage and one roach attack will kill a ling, 25 damage and one roach attack will kill a ling. The damage buff vs unarmored does not affect Lings in the least.
Technically speaking, the increase in attackspeed helps equally against Ling and Roach. However, comparing equal supply:
1 Roach = Takes 6 Spine hits to kill. Slow and has a hard time running past defending units or spines.
4 Lings = Takes 8 Spine hits to kill. Fast and able to run straight through defending units and past spines.
Clearly the spine buff is much better anti-Roach than anti-Ling.
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Roaches are 1 supply each, so they're equivalent to 2 lings in supply.
Roach is about equivalent to 4 lings in resource cost though.
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On March 30 2010 12:38 LUE.Leoj wrote:
I just played a few games like this, ended each with something like 100+ Zerglings. One question though - how many Drones do you get, roughly? I find on two hatch/two queen I'm accumulating more minerals than I can spend so I'm assuming I'm building too many but I'd like to hear what other people use.
Once you have an extra 300 minerals take a third base and add a third queen.
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Wait, are people on this build going pure ling and teching straight to muta?
Also, just a thought, what about sniping the hatch at some opportune point in the game? =P
If the other player went roach and move out with minimal backstab defense, is it possible to just straight kill the hatch?
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On March 31 2010 10:54 zomgzergrush wrote:
Wait, are people on this build going pure ling and teching straight to muta?
Also, just a thought, what about sniping the hatch at some opportune point in the game? =P
If the other player went roach and move out with minimal backstab defense, is it possible to just straight kill the hatch?
thats typically what i try to do. if they go roach into expo. you can easily kill the expo. sniping a queen is very easy also.
and yea. basic idea is get to mutas asap. build may even evolve into skipping the +1 and going straight mutas like BW. it's kind of unnecessary i feel. i kill roaches with pure lings in multiple engagements before +1 is done. speed makes the most difference.
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On March 31 2010 11:00 MavercK wrote:
thats typically what i try to do. if they go roach into expo. you can easily kill the expo. sniping a queen is very easy also.
and yea. basic idea is get to mutas asap. build may even evolve into skipping the +1 and going straight mutas like BW. it's kind of unnecessary i feel. i kill roaches with pure lings in multiple engagements before +1 is done. speed makes the most difference.
I dunno, +1 attack on the lings is pretty key with this strat. As long as the roach user didn't rush his +1 attack upgrade too fast, your lings will be superior long enough to get an expansion or muta.
+1 attack on lings makes them kill a roach with like 12 less hits, which is a big deal. The problem, however, is if he rushes +1 attack on his roaches he now 2 shots zerglings instead of 3 shotting them, which then puts the advantage back in his court.
Overall, I find the speedling strat too risky to be worth it. Sure, it is fun to catch someone off guard with it now and then, but there are too many ways for it to leave you way behind.
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I've been doing this strat the last few days, and thought it was so fun that I started to incorporate it into my ZvP and ZvT occasionally. It's risky and it's fun. Is it effective? It's worked well enough for me, as long as I'm really on my toes and play aggressive. I don't know how well it'll work against particularly good players, or someone that goes something other than a standard 1 base Roach ZvZ build.
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It gets tricky when they start doing ling as well...
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Oh, I forgot to mention. I also played against a very good Zerg who mirrored my build, and we had some very nice speedling wars on Desert Oasis. It was a close enough mirror that we both even expanded at the same time. I gained the upper hand when I chose to get +1 attack and he chose to tech to Muta. I scouted it and pushed in time to break into his base as his Mutas first popped, and easily won the base-trading race.
Even if it's not the most effective ZvZ strategy, it's many times more fun to play then 1base Roach v 1base Roach.
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Used this strat last night and went 5-1 in ZvZ, often times they will try very hard to push you with initial 4 roachs followed by 7 so it kind of mucks up with your timing push but if you can fend it off you are at an advantage. I guy a lost to on Stepps of War? pushed my expansion with a small roach force and main with a bigger one while teching to mutas I had been too occupied and teched slower to mutas so eventually he wore me down. I think if you can tech faster defend or be aggressive yourself it will work well.
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I've used this now as well in my ZvZ but I find it doest do well on steppes of war and the other 1v1 where basically a straight run across the middle (one with 2 grass patches in the mid...) b/c the early pool or first roach force gets to me too soon with the late pool this build has.
But for ever other map this strat seems to beat all.
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Seems to have trouble against a roach player that gets early +1 ranged attack.
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Wait what? Wasn't it mass Roaches vs Roaches before? What changed?
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On April 01 2010 08:10 Bibdy wrote:
Wait what? Wasn't it mass Roaches vs Roaches before? What changed?
People figured out that if you're ballsy and quick you can out mass the Roaches enough with Speedlings to establish map control and win the macro game. So now there are two 'standard' options to open with, 1 base Roach or FE Speedlings.
Or you could always 6-8 pool and just cheese it.
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so i found that on small 2 player maps (blistering sands and steppes of war) 6 pool, drone, drone, 3x2 zerglings, send 2 drones when 3x2 zerglings are half way done to build 2 spine crawlers on enemy creep will ALWAYS beat an opponent's 10 pool
if it's any other map, i go the 13 pool first then 14 expansion then queen
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I did this as my primary strategy for a great majority of my early games
(usually ranked 2nd/3rd in my plat division so usually not vs idiots) and there are some incredibly easy counters
for example: noticing a trend of really really early baneling rush into mineral line vs roach players but if you did this zergling strategy you will get dominated (all ur lings evaporate while he rolls in w/ his)
but I've regularly beaten this baneling strat with fast 1up roaches
and if you both do the identical 1 up speedling vs speedling build then first guy to get 2-3 money shots w/ banelings win (unless one of the players didnt get 1up on lings and actually transitioned into roaches in which case banelings are awful)
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On March 31 2010 06:35 ukshi wrote:
I tried this, but my opponent walled himself in with roaches and made tons of workers and spore crawlers for defense against mutalisks. Even tho he didn't have any expansions he produced units fine as fuck.
Now lings were useless.
if hes powering off one base and building spore crawlers you should be expanding to 3 bases and owning him. If he moves out your lings can surround / back stab, if he doesn't you win the macro war
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I'm sorry I dunno how people are having success with this speedling vs roaches.
3-4 Roaches with micro and queen and possibly spinecrawler > X amount of speedlings
If you fail your first attack, he just moves out 2 min later with 20 roaches (i like to up +1 attack), and gg? If you FE with some crawlers, if the opponent is smart, he would have scouted the FE, gotten his own expo after fending off puny lings, tech to lair + hydras + contain + take over map = GG
Sorry man, I just get a huge smile on my face when ZvZ and the guy decides to get speedlings +fe
Muts come too late and upped hydras rape them and Hydras are cheaper and faster to get.
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Now that you can block ramps with roaches the roach user should be able to move out earlier, right?
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Well done Raelcun. But didnt you post too early?
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I still have a tough time vs people who actually get roach.
I think the trick is to exploit the backstab if they wanna move out prematurely. If theyre smart and wait, though, it's ample time to get spines up and move towards tech, more ups, or more lings.
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I think the reason 1 base roachers lose to zerglings is mainly that they dont counter them with banelings.
I've tried out the 14 hatch 14 pool build on scrap station yesterday, and i was absolutely obliterated by banelings/roaches.
Now im back to 1 Base roaches, although, admittedly, i lost once to speedlings since then, it was because i played too eco intensive and had the banelings out too late.
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2 hatch speedling... a lot of ppl does that, mass roach rapes it quite hard
i see why do you say lings could own them, but if you do not engage in a stupid position speedlings do not take down the roaches.
burrow upgrade also totally rapes the lings, even if you have an overseer around, its a lot harder to focus fire with speedlings the burrowed raoches
also a couple lings of your own can mass up the other player's units if you use them correctly.
And there are ofc the banelings
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Mystlord
United States10264 Posts
Just throwing my two cents in:
I think this will work until the player who went Roaches goes for a +1 ranged attack upgrade timing push. Roaches with +1 range 2 shot lings, so the player who goes mass lings is forced to go for the carapace upgrade, and at that point the survivability of Roaches vs lings becomes an issue.
Mobility of Zerglings is nice, but when Roaches clump in a ball, there just isn't enough surface area on that Roach ball for mass Lings to work.
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a mirror can never be broken
in sc2 nothing is broken
roaches > ur strat
damn dont cry
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Yesterday was zvz day, so I faced several variations of speedling builds. +1 ranged easily beat them all so far. I only faced "favored" players btw.
Currently I really hope that my enemies go for lings in zvz. If they play like me the games go all the way up to Broodlords and I generally lose because I have zero experience with infestors.
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Just had a silly Idea, but maybe it is worth a try:
How much better is worker pathing now? How much income do you lose by placing your main building a little farther away from your mineral line?
I believe this question is even more pertinent with Z, since you can just place a hatchery in the good spot later on, and the early hatch will be a production hatch.
Also, We've seen P delay his nexus in favor of a Gate-Forge wallin against Z with great effectiveness.
So why not place your 1st "expo" hatch outside the good spot i.e. in ZvZ at Lost Temple? This will make the creep reach the choke much faster, and you won't spend queen energy for that.
You'll then be able to wallin with Evo+Queen/Lings, and maybe even Roach Warren if the build affords it. This beats speedlings easily, since they'll have a hard time to kill the buildings under queen fire, and even if they do, the broodlings will cleanup the lings. If your opponent goes Roaches, you can place Spines just like P places cannons (range 4 from the wall, so that it hits roaches attacking the wall, but roaches can't move in to attack the crawler), and if you went roaches you can still place them in front of the crawlers to deal with zerglings.
What must be tested is if the wall can hold (I believe it can easily), how much off-placing your hatch affects the economy, how many queens, if transfusion should be used (i.e. oly doing 2/3 the injections you'd do, so that you have a transfusion ready at the time one building would fall), if replacing a good hatch is worth it, transitions to other builds, expansions, etc...
But 1 base Roach doesn't even get an expo normally, and you'll be able to commit less to fighting units with a good non-roach wall.
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I normally have a ton of success, but yesterday lost to two 1 base roach builds because the players were simply smart enough to ball up their Roaches and move slow. I might have been able to overcome it the first game by being a bit more aggressive, but the second one I out expanded the guy, had complete map control, and had almost three times the Lings as he had Roaches and still got reamed. Maybe a faster tech switch to Mutas would have helped (I was admittedly pretty slow about it) but he actually had a few Hydras out before my Spire was done.
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3:1 ling roach isn't very good without an upgrade advantage
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On April 01 2010 19:21 spinesheath wrote:
Yesterday was zvz day, so I faced several variations of speedling builds. +1 ranged easily beat them all so far. I only faced "favored" players btw.
Currently I really hope that my enemies go for lings in zvz. If they play like me the games go all the way up to Broodlords and I generally lose because I have zero experience with infestors.
What league are you in? I can't really believe this is consistently beatable with roaches unless you are really a lot better than your opponent, which seems not to be the case if you play vs. favoured players. Can you pm me you ID on beta?
I just tried it the last couple of days and I was blown away by how effective this is. Most of the time the roaching player just dies to starvation because he is too afraid to move out. Or he does move out and loses his entire base.
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ling to muta to muta/baneling = gg.
with upgrades of course.
With the new sunken you can push back a roach timing attack.
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On April 02 2010 02:12 Slunk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2010 19:21 spinesheath wrote:
Yesterday was zvz day, so I faced several variations of speedling builds. +1 ranged easily beat them all so far. I only faced "favored" players btw.
Currently I really hope that my enemies go for lings in zvz. If they play like me the games go all the way up to Broodlords and I generally lose because I have zero experience with infestors. What league are you in? I can't really believe this is consistently beatable with roaches unless you are really a lot better than your opponent, which seems not to be the case if you play vs. favoured players. Can you pm me you ID on beta? I just tried it the last couple of days and I was blown away by how effective this is. Most of the time the roaching player just dies to starvation because he is too afraid to move out. Or he does move out and loses his entire base.
spinesheath.spinesheath on Europe.
I currently am in gold, on my way to platinum after some messed up placement matches. I am facing mostly platinums.
It could be that not all of those speedling players are at my level. But my builds are far from optimal, I am messing up a ton (like not properly blocking chokes).
The thing is, my +1 ranged comes around the same time as their ling speed. Their +1 melee is finished even later. +1/+1 would be much later. And that's not just because those guys are bad (if they are), it's an inherent trait of this hatch pool build.
Hatch pool probably also dies immediately to stuff like 6 pool, while 13 pool has always been enough for me to hold those rushes. It certainly is a lot safer. So that's another reason not to go for this build. I don't want to have to pray that my opponent doesn't rush me every game.
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I have had a lot of success with this on maps with large ramps, but I struggle with it on LT for example.
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its not borken just boreing as hell !!!
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I have yet to lose to this, granted not everyone seems to have the same build or plan when they go speedlings. I basically just saturate with 22ish min drones and 6 on gas. Place my pool / evo chamber to block the major pathways into my mineral line and add 1 sunken just as standard in case i get 10 pooled or whatever. Then I just make roaches with every larvae I don't need to make an over lord.
I think the most important thing is to not panic when playing speed lings, I stay in my base, I don't even bother trying to stop the expansion or whatever, research +1 attack and just keep your roaches balled up. When +1 finishes I'm usually around 50 supply or so and I'll be at 25 roaches or so around then too or shortly after. I wait till another injection pops and make 5-7 more roaches, when those are done I block my ramp with that 5-7 and just go kill the ling player with my other 25 roaches. If you keep your roaches balled up and near a wall I truly believe it's impossible to lose to speed lings. Then when they lose that battle they try to back door me but because properly positioned / microed roaches just obliterate speed lings i've still got like 15 more roaches back at home to stop the back door and when +1 armor finishes it really is just game over for the speedling strat.
Now, the interesting thing is if the speedling strat can evolve into a quicker muta push, or perhaps even transition into a fast expand roach strat while not losing to +1 speed roaches right away. Though I already have the evo chamber and I typically throw down 2 spores just because at that point I feel like "the only way I lose is by a muta surprise" so why not.
That should be the next step to the speedling strat, beat me while I play defensive off one base with something other then speedlings because speed lings can't win.
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On April 02 2010 05:03 mondry wrote:
I have yet to lose to this, granted not everyone seems to have the same build or plan when they go speedlings. I basically just saturate with 22ish min drones and 6 on gas. Place my pool / evo chamber to block the major pathways into my mineral line and add 1 sunken just as standard in case i get 10 pooled or whatever. Then I just make roaches with every larvae I don't need to make an over lord.
I think the most important thing is to not panic when playing speed lings, I stay in my base, I don't even bother trying to stop the expansion or whatever, research +1 attack and just keep your roaches balled up. When +1 finishes I'm usually around 50 supply or so and I'll be at 25 roaches or so around then too or shortly after. I wait till another injection pops and make 5-7 more roaches, when those are done I block my ramp with that 5-7 and just go kill the ling player with my other 25 roaches. If you keep your roaches balled up and near a wall I truly believe it's impossible to lose to speed lings. Then when they lose that battle they try to back door me but because properly positioned / microed roaches just obliterate speed lings i've still got like 15 more roaches back at home to stop the back door and when +1 armor finishes it really is just game over for the speedling strat.
Now, the interesting thing is if the speedling strat can evolve into a quicker muta push, or perhaps even transition into a fast expand roach strat while not losing to +1 speed roaches right away. Though I already have the evo chamber and I typically throw down 2 spores just because at that point I feel like "the only way I lose is by a muta surprise" so why not.
That should be the next step to the speedling strat, beat me while I play defensive off one base with something other then speedlings because speed lings can't win.
This is basically the way spinesheath just schooled me in 2 games. Sim city with roach warren, pool and evo makes the lings drop half their effectiveness and keeping just some roaches at your choke or in you well walled-in mineral line defends backstabs easily. With an early upgrade advantage lings can't do anything.
Also, even though 4 lings kill a roach, there is no way 100 lings can kill a roach ball of 25 roaches.
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This build seems to be gaining in popularity, I've had several people try it against me today. So far I've won every single game by 13 pooling and attacking with roaches before ling speed kicks in. I just leave 2 roaches behind, which, together with the queen, are sufficient to defend against backstabs (remember he hasn't got speed yet) and his lings just can't take on my roaches head-on. However I'm quite a bit better than the opponents I play against atm, so I have no idea whether this actually works or not.
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On April 02 2010 05:44 Slunk wrote:
This is basically the way spinesheath just schooled me in 2 games. Sim city with roach warren, pool and evo makes the lings drop half their effectiveness and keeping just some roaches at your choke or in you well walled-in mineral line defends backstabs easily. With an early upgrade advantage lings can't do anything.
Also, even though 4 lings kill a roach, there is no way 100 lings can kill a roach ball of 25 roaches.
Lost the same way twice last night (though not to the same person). Because I was unable to directly hinder his economy due to decent speedling harass, even on one base he was able to mass up a critical mass ball of Roaches and take me out. The second game was better; I was quicker with my Lings, kept him well contained, but he was easily able to block his choke and prevent me from doing real damage. Despite me having map control and 2 bases to his 1, he pushed out with a load of Roaches and a few Hydras and took me out.
The first one, the guy was so fast on so many Roaches that I just had no chance. The second match, I feel like I would have been fine had I A: expanded again to a third base and thrown down a few more Spines at my natural, or B: Just teched straight to Muta as soon as my initial Speedling pressure was ineffective.
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Seems like all good zergs already know about this. Tried this vs a rank 6 plat zerg and lost.
He knew exactly what I was going to do.
He sat in his base with mass roaches, knowing I couldnt get that big of an econ advantage because i needed to spend larvae on lings. He waited for +1 carapace to finish, and then sent all but 3 of his roaches at my base.
I had 1/1 lings and 3 crawlers down, but you can't get a good surround if he's moving across the map with ~20 roaches. I turned around and hit his base, but with more roaches coming out and standing in his mineral line, 40 lings get demolished by ~6 roaches queen and drone clutter. I got out 8 mutalisks but he just put up 3 spore colonies and picked off the rest of my units. I tried to kill his roaches with mutas, but for each one i killed he made 2 more.
They really need to fix roaches. This is a ridiculous matchup. I don't see a point in getting lings for map control if u need to spend that many larvae. Extra expansions are equally pointless because u don't even have 40 drones at your current two expansions.
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roach v roach, weeeeee so much diversity
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It's not roach vs roach. Good players will always add hydras and infestors in and slowly add broodlords. By that time a 3rd base will be up and muta/ling harrass will become more interesting.
Attacking doesn't make too much sense in a roach v roach zvz, unless your opponent messed up somehow. At least not before infestors are out. And then we've got hydra/roach/infestor - how different is that from goon/zeal/reaver? Adding broodlords in is like adding HTs in.
You could drop into the min line with reavers. You can do sneaky burrow move stuff and fungal drones twice.
Yeah, early zvz is not very spectacular. But if neither player messes up it can get interesting.
At least it doesn't seem as bad as the current tvp, where marauders seem to work against just anything if you only mass enough of them. If you stay with roaches and miss the transition into hydra/roach you're dead.
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this isn't true IMO.
on my one accnt, im ranked 13 plantinum, only lost one ZvZ (vs a 6pool zergling rush where he microd well)
Roaches > all with MS upg, and you can pop out an expo pretty quickly, as roaches overpower zerglings at such a high ratio.
I've seen a speedling strat like this done pretty fast, but by the time he had about 30 speedlings i had 6 roaches blocking any possible way into my nat. expo as long as my queen was at the front line, undefeated
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Ling builds are pretty strong on Kulas and maybe Desert Oasis, but every other map I have not had a problem.
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ZvZ is a joke right now. There needs to be some major development investment on blizzards part to really make it exciting instead of a simple zergling or roaches fest.
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A +1 roach build definitely doesn't instantly lose to massling in any variation. Sure you can mess up but it is a strong build.
Normally it shouldn't be possible to take an expansion with roaches versus lings before +1 ranged is done or very close if the ling player is being aggressive enough.
The problem I have right now is that with hatch pool you can defend the initial zerglings off 13 pool easily and then you can transition into roaches. The threat of mass ling prevents the 13 pool player from taking his expansion very quickly and thus the 13 pool player is at an economical disadvantage.
So it would look like this:
6 pool > 14 hatch > 13 pool > 6 pool
Where 6 pool is any build that gets lings quickly enough to punish a 14 hatch. From my experience 13 pool works well against ling rushes.
Now I personally don't like having to pick one of those 3 builds and gamble. So I am trying to find a build that both gets sufficient economy and fast +1 ranged to withstand mass ling, is safe enough against 6 pool, and allows you to punish 14 hatch into roach enough to be back on even grounds.
I've some ideas (which are just little variations of my 13 pool +1 ranged build), but not much experience against 14 hatch into roach yet. 14 hatch roach might be doomed against certain reactionary timing pushes, but then you also have to consider the possibility of crawlers which do hurt his economy but are quite strong.
Well, I need to play some games and test it out, just sharing my thoughts on what I consider the current zvz "metagame".
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There's a timing attack at 16 roaches you need to watch out for if you dothis build.
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Hmm, what about moving adrenaline glances ( dont remember the name, Zerling +20% attack speed upgrade ) from Hive to Lair and reducing cost to 150/150?
Upgrade for Zerglings in Hive tier is a joke, at that point in the game ( having Hive ) no1 uses Zerglings as a attack force, maybe sometimes in ZvT to surround MMM army so they cant run from banelings ( but infestors are way better for that at this stage ).
That way using Zerglings would make them actually viable even a little later in the game.
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Lings aren't exactly dmg dealers (late in the game, early game you can deal a bit of dmg with them). The only reason you get them is to contain an attack force / hold them up. But this isn't always necessary in MU where you have face off situations.
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I agree with moving adrenaline glands to lair tech or at least increasing the attack speed bonus if it remains at hive tech. Right now it feels useless being at hive tech. At that stage in the game, the current attack speed bonus for cracklings is not sufficient enough to keep them on par with tier, whatsoever.
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hydra/roach falls to pure roach.
http://www.mediafire.com/?kjzqwizum0j
be forewarned it's a 19 minute roach-build-a-thonso watch it fast.
he goes roach/hydra
i go roach with an upgrade or two.
game seemed pretty even until the end.
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what is your problem with speedlings guys? They got weaker in exchange for speed. They are perfectly fine.
And btw i never build roaches in any match up as random player, i just dislike these slow moving short range towers ^^. i think i won 9 out of my last 10 zvz just playing it oldschool style.
Well maybe it is because i am only in gold league, but i am at least 1st.
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On April 04 2010 09:24 kidcrash wrote:
I agree with moving adrenaline glands to lair tech or at least increasing the attack speed bonus if it remains at hive tech. Right now it feels useless being at hive tech. At that stage in the game, the current attack speed bonus for cracklings is not sufficient enough to keep them on par with tier, whatsoever.
i agree, i almost never get adrenaline glands because by the time i get to hive tech, zerglings are pretty useless
make it lair tech and you'll see my get adrenaline glands much more often
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On April 04 2010 10:14 FiercE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2010 09:24 kidcrash wrote:
I agree with moving adrenaline glands to lair tech or at least increasing the attack speed bonus if it remains at hive tech. Right now it feels useless being at hive tech. At that stage in the game, the current attack speed bonus for cracklings is not sufficient enough to keep them on par with tier, whatsoever. i agree, i almost never get adrenaline glands because by the time i get to hive tech, zerglings are pretty useless
zerglings are so nice to block enemies units path, so they cannot run away and have to fight.
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you should always be getting zerglings from start to finish. they are excellent units to spend excess minerals on that will act as a meat shield/extra damage/blocking unit to compliment your standard army. or simply use for runbys or back dooring
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OK!
so JUST AFTER. winning pure roach against roach/hydra and posting a replay. i have new findings.
won a game with roach/hydra against pure roach (oh im good at making myself look stupid)
anyway. in this game we both got upgrades. we both rushed +2 attack and then +1 attack. i got +3 attack out and attacked on completion.
hydra make roach go pop with +3 attack, i was amazed at the damage they did.
but 0/0 upgrades i would say roaches clearly dominate ZvZ.
so if you want to win with hydras. start your upgrades early.
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TLDR the other posts.
Isn't this basically what brood war ZvZ was? Hydras were crap, and if both players go zerglings, then won't you eventually get to Mutas?
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well im getting mixed results
first i was doing mass roaches with no upgrades and having a frustrating time because it was just. gay.
then doing this speedling into muta build i had ALOT of success. never lost a game. but i can see how +1 attack roach would destroy speedlings.
now doing this early upgrades going for +3 attack asap transitioning into hydras i seem to be having alot of success. the only problem? games go for 25-30 minutes with alot of staring each other in the eye across the battlefield.
mass speedlings is the funnest and probably the best imo.
you get that early map control any early (10 or less roaches) push will get destroyed by speedlings and you get mutas out. really fast and if hes been going mass roach. his lair/spire/den will be very very delayed. hopefully you just have enough speedlings. this build is extremly dangerous in terms of a timing attack when you go spire/start making mutas. as only a couple mutas will not help at all in a fight and what roaches you "could" of had instead of mutas can easily cost you the game. (he can kill your army and all your drones before you get out a critical amount of mutas)
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Don't Zergling's that run into Banelings get killed by the handful?
Woudln't you be better defending against a player massing Zerglings just be careful and place Banelings around buildings and your army of Roaches as you push around the map?
(Terran player, just asking...)
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After reading this thread i tried out the speedling build, had some success, but nothing special. Around 50% win ratio.
I don't see how i could have excecuted this any different, it seems like this [what u see in the replay] pretty much stops FE-speedling dead in it's tracks. I pretty much get demolished by +1 roaches.
I'm very interested in feedback, otherwise i will prolly go back to just massing roaches with +1 again *sigh*.
In-game handle: Vec.Vec
REPLAY: http://www.mediafire.com/?y2mmgw22mqx
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On April 04 2010 11:50 cursor wrote:
Don't Zergling's that run into Banelings get killed by the handful?
Woudln't you be better defending against a player massing Zerglings just be careful and place Banelings around buildings and your army of Roaches as you push around the map?
(Terran player, just asking...)
banelings destroy zerglings. but thats it. they are useless against any other unit (maybe hydras if you can ever get them that close)
so yea if you know speedlings are coming banelings are a good choice. but regardless it seems this build will just be used for fast mutas and then what? you've spent gas on getting banelings so you'll be behind. unless you can end it before that.
*EDIT*
also upload replays to mediafire.com next time. it's simpler. easier. faster and doesn't make me god damn wait ! T_T
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lol ty
well. +1 attack on roaches is supposed to be the direct counter to speedlings
i generally go lair after starting +1 attack with the next 100 gas. you didn't go lair at all.
also he got his +1 attack a minute or two before you did. your major clash also happened while he had +1 attack and you did not. i think that was all really.
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I am reluctant to think that a "measly" +1 favored the battle so vastly in his favor, but then again i'm not basing that on any sort of tangible fact or statistic. What is true is that futher testing needs to be done! Anything but roach spam is certainly welcome 
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+1 on roach means they 2 shot zerglings instead of 3 shots. given how slowly roaches attack. it's a really really big deal for them.
i dunno what the numbers are on lings vs roaches but +1 for the lings is huge aswell. alot less attacks required to kill the unit.
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hydra/roach falls to pure roach. http://www.mediafire.com/?kjzqwizum0jbe forewarned it's a 19 minute roach-build-a-thonso watch it fast. he goes roach/hydra i go roach with an upgrade or two. game seemed pretty even until the end.
Wouldn't it be a darned shame if he got 5> mutas, or broodlords?
Hydras arent ALWAYS used for power in ZvZ, alot of the time they are used
to counter any type of air harass, ALSO they have much longer range than the roaches.
Now i've vsed many armies of nearly pure hydra roach/hydra combos, and focus roaches and win
BUT, if he seriously got some brood lords out, what then? gg for you? By the time you build a Hydra den, he could be knocking at your base, and forget about the spire, such a long build time.
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On April 04 2010 09:36 MavercK wrote:hydra/roach falls to pure roach. http://www.mediafire.com/?kjzqwizum0jbe forewarned it's a 19 minute roach-build-a-thonso watch it fast. he goes roach/hydra i go roach with an upgrade or two. game seemed pretty even until the end.
you're completely wrong. roach / hydra beats pure roach in a lot of situations because the hydras deal so much more damage
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If you go roach/hydra (which you should) you always need to have enough roaches infront of them to tank. Pretty much how tank/vult or goon/zeal worked in BW, you mostly rebuild roaches when you go into a battle. Hydras without roaches in front die quickly to roaches.
+1 shouldn't make a huge difference regarding the effectiveness of hydras as long as you have the same upgrades as your opponent. Upgrades are pretty strong in zvz though so you should always get them.
roach/hydra vs roach/hydra indeed doesn't seem to reward aggression very much. Running into a properly set up line of roaches with hydras in the back won't be so good. You could try to start picking at the roaches with your hydras and retreating once the roaches start moving but if your opponent manages to arc around your forces you'll be dead.
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sigh. hydras do alot of damage. but almost 2 roaches for the cost of a hydra. is it really worth it without taking into account upgrades (0/0 situation here since i already said roach/hydra with upgrades is a different story)
does 1 hydra kill 2 roaches? the answer is no. not by a long shot. i know that isn't really a fair comparison but roach vs roach/hydra means the guy massing roaches will have a GIANT number advantage and will simply be able to push into the other guy. (as shown in my replay)
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On April 04 2010 17:39 MavercK wrote:
sigh. hydras do alot of damage. but almost 2 roaches for the cost of a hydra. is it really worth it without taking into account upgrades (0/0 situation here since i already said roach/hydra with upgrades is a different story)
does 1 hydra kill 2 roaches? the answer is no. not by a long shot. i know that isn't really a fair comparison but roach vs roach/hydra means the guy massing roaches will have a GIANT number advantage and will simply be able to push into the other guy. (as shown in my replay)
There is one thing that you simply don't understand: range.
Hydralisks have 5 range, 6 with their upgrade. Roaches have 3.
This means that if you have more Roaches than you do open space for them to get to a place to shoot at something, then you have unusued Roaches. So, for a particular configuration of terrain, there is a certain number of Roaches beyond which you will just have some milling around in the back, unable to get into a position to shoot something.
This is true for every ranged unit. But how many you can get before you run out of room is based on the size of the unit and its range.
While a Hydralisk may cost "twice" as much as a Roach, replacing a pair of Roaches that can't shoot at anything due to lack of space with a Hydralisk that can is very much worth the cost. The Hydralisks are in no immediate danger from the enemy's Roaches, because they have to fight through 2-3 layers of Roaches to get at them. The Hydralisks are free hits.
It's the same principle as Siege Tanks, only with shorter range brackets.
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^ it probably depends on the maps choke points which is better. There is also the larva issue. Hydra give you more bang per larva.
if there was a way for zerg to tech after expo without getting run over that could add variety. I haven't tried the new spine crawlers, but maybe they are enough. I still want to try going ling > muta and targeting hydras.
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choke points are a different story. but anyone would be stupid to attack into a choke without a clear victory in sight.
and yes. hydras have more range. doesn't stop them simply walking forward point blank into the roaches and having 3-4 rows of roaches shooting your line. see'ing them instantly explode and then again marching them up point blank to the hydras and taking them out in a quarter of the time. sure you can micro your hydras back. but not with roach speed.
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there are choke points all over the map. An attacking player can take advantage of choke points just as easily as a defending player can. The larger the armies get, the more you will see choke points all over the map. I don't think the plan is to march your hydras up to the enemies roaches without protection, fire some shots off, then try to run. If you are thinking of trying that then feel free.. The hit and run tactics would involve the whole army of roaches / hydras vs. the enemies roaches vying for position near a choke point. Clearly the hydras will be behind the roaches.. To see what I am talking about, just watch one of the many pro ZvZ replays where one player goes roach / hydra.
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what i meant was with roaches. roaches get blocked in a choke point yes. if you leave them to try and concave. what you will see alot of good players doing is marching forward so their roaches are practically in melee range and then attack.
i agree roach/hydra is better. but ONLY if your getting the early upgrades and going for that sort of upgrade advantage.
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On April 04 2010 22:37 MavercK wrote:
what i meant was with roaches. roaches get blocked in a choke point yes. if you leave them to try and concave. what you will see alot of good players doing is marching forward so their roaches are practically in melee range and then attack.
i agree roach/hydra is better. but ONLY if your getting the early upgrades and going for that sort of upgrade advantage.
Hydralisk upgrades are comparatively weak. 12+1 equals about 8% more damage. 16+2 equals about 12% more damage. Hydralisk attack upgrades get canceled out by armor upgrades, roach upgrades still have some effect. I'm definitely not getting hydras because their upgrades are so good.
The hydra : roach ratio is extremely important. You always want your ratio slightly more hydra-favored than your opponent, but not too much. That way the higher DPS of the hydra/roach army will obliberate the pure roach army before the roach line can be breached.
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Is this build an American thing? Everyone on EU is going roaches (at least in Gold league). I have tried this strategy about 5 times and lost every game to just one-base roaches. I have no idea how can this work if they just build 12+ roaches and attack.
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On April 05 2010 01:45 spinesheath wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2010 22:37 MavercK wrote:
what i meant was with roaches. roaches get blocked in a choke point yes. if you leave them to try and concave. what you will see alot of good players doing is marching forward so their roaches are practically in melee range and then attack.
i agree roach/hydra is better. but ONLY if your getting the early upgrades and going for that sort of upgrade advantage. Hydralisk upgrades are comparatively weak. 12+1 equals about 8% more damage. 16+2 equals about 12% more damage. Hydralisk attack upgrades get canceled out by armor upgrades, roach upgrades still have some effect. I'm definitely not getting hydras because their upgrades are so good. The hydra : roach ratio is extremely important. You always want your ratio slightly more hydra-favored than your opponent, but not too much. That way the higher DPS of the hydra/roach army will obliberate the pure roach army before the roach line can be breached.
You are forgetting to add in the fact that hydras attack speed is 'Fast' whereas the roaches attack speed is 'Normal'
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On April 05 2010 20:22 goszar wrote:
Is this build an American thing? Everyone on EU is going roaches (at least in Gold league). I have tried this strategy about 5 times and lost every game to just one-base roaches. I have no idea how can this work if they just build 12+ roaches and attack.
One base roach beats this speedling build easily, but if you expand early, assuming your opponent goes for roaches, you can die to a lot of lings pretty fast.
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On April 05 2010 20:43 Blackjackbob wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 01:45 spinesheath wrote:On April 04 2010 22:37 MavercK wrote:
what i meant was with roaches. roaches get blocked in a choke point yes. if you leave them to try and concave. what you will see alot of good players doing is marching forward so their roaches are practically in melee range and then attack.
i agree roach/hydra is better. but ONLY if your getting the early upgrades and going for that sort of upgrade advantage. Hydralisk upgrades are comparatively weak. 12+1 equals about 8% more damage. 16+2 equals about 12% more damage. Hydralisk attack upgrades get canceled out by armor upgrades, roach upgrades still have some effect. I'm definitely not getting hydras because their upgrades are so good. The hydra : roach ratio is extremely important. You always want your ratio slightly more hydra-favored than your opponent, but not too much. That way the higher DPS of the hydra/roach army will obliberate the pure roach army before the roach line can be breached. You are forgetting to add in the fact that hydras attack speed is 'Fast' whereas the roaches attack speed is 'Normal'
So I guess you want me to consider DPS instead of damage. Fine:
Hydras with +1 have 8% more DPS,
Roaches with +1 have 12% more DPS.
Doesn't change anything.
The only other thing that is worth considering is armor, mainly that of roaches. Assume that neither player gets armor upgrades early on (attacks seems much stronger and cheaper too).
Hydras actually deal 10+1 damage to roaches, which is 10% more.
Roaches deal 14+2 to roaches, which is 14% more.
So again, roaches profit more from upgrades. That's not the reason hydras are worth getting for.
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On April 05 2010 20:46 Slunk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 20:22 goszar wrote:
Is this build an American thing? Everyone on EU is going roaches (at least in Gold league). I have tried this strategy about 5 times and lost every game to just one-base roaches. I have no idea how can this work if they just build 12+ roaches and attack. One base roach beats this speedling build easily, but if you expand early, assuming your opponent goes for roaches, you can die to a lot of lings pretty fast.
Thank you. I don't see any problem then.
1 Base Roach > FE Speedling > FE Roach > 1 Base Roach. It's how it should be.
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On April 06 2010 00:14 goszar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2010 20:46 Slunk wrote:On April 05 2010 20:22 goszar wrote:
Is this build an American thing? Everyone on EU is going roaches (at least in Gold league). I have tried this strategy about 5 times and lost every game to just one-base roaches. I have no idea how can this work if they just build 12+ roaches and attack. One base roach beats this speedling build easily, but if you expand early, assuming your opponent goes for roaches, you can die to a lot of lings pretty fast. Thank you. I don't see any problem then. 1 Base Roach > FE Speedling > FE Roach > 1 Base Roach. It's how it should be.
I've been doing a 1-base Speedling/+1 melee and just expand after my first harass that has been working really well against 1 base Roach. I just keep harassing his mineral line and prevent expansions with the Speedlings and tech to Muta as I get my second base running and overpower him. It works best on a large map where you have plenty of warning if the Roaches come out and plenty of room to manuever.
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On April 06 2010 00:23 w_Ender_w wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 00:14 goszar wrote:On April 05 2010 20:46 Slunk wrote:On April 05 2010 20:22 goszar wrote:
Is this build an American thing? Everyone on EU is going roaches (at least in Gold league). I have tried this strategy about 5 times and lost every game to just one-base roaches. I have no idea how can this work if they just build 12+ roaches and attack. One base roach beats this speedling build easily, but if you expand early, assuming your opponent goes for roaches, you can die to a lot of lings pretty fast. Thank you. I don't see any problem then. 1 Base Roach > FE Speedling > FE Roach > 1 Base Roach. It's how it should be. I've been doing a 1-base Speedling/+1 melee and just expand after my first harass that has been working really well against 1 base Roach. I just keep harassing his mineral line and prevent expansions with the Speedlings and tech to Muta as I get my second base running and overpower him. It works best on a large map where you have plenty of warning if the Roaches come out and plenty of room to manuever.
Have you faced +1 attack roaches? I don't see how lings will do anything at that point. Also 1 base roach will have a fast lair out for roach speed so I always get ovi speed too and I'll see that spire coming up way before it's finished, so I have so much time to prepare an attack and get hydra. I just don't see how it works.
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On March 30 2010 08:09 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2010 08:07 _rdm_ wrote:dont tell the americans how to play zvz This strategy isnt out on american servers yet. I'm an american zerg and I'm getting tired of winning by default just because they try to go roaches and with over 60% of my games being ZvZ on average it gets old after a while. edit: Seriously to the doubters TRY IT like I said in the OP I gave you a BO use it and tell me it doesnt work then.
14 hatch seems really really really slow against 10pool/overpool, which i always see my Z opponents doing against me. I used to go 13pool in every matchup, get a fast queen and 6 lings as soon as my pool pops, and i've already got lings in my base. against terrible A-move zergs i can keep my drones alive until my queen and lings are out and then i can just out econ while countering, but if the zerg micros and does some damage, it's over. 14 hatch is even later than this, so how do you deal with it?
Lately i've been going overpool/immediate queen, get four to six lings, then tech straight to roaches and get the speed upgrade when i have my second gas, followed by +1 carapace.
What i've noticed is that when i get to this point, i can keep pumping roaches and if he does FE, he loses the expo outright, and when +1 carapace pops i roll him, and if he does 1base speedlings, i just contain with a great concave outside of his choke and then i'm free to take my natural.
It seems to me that speedlings are just the weaker way to go. Later on perhaps, like late midgame, i could see going roach/hydra/baneling, or instead of BL maybe get lings for extra mobility to get the surrounds.
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On April 06 2010 00:56 Floophead_III wrote:
Have you faced +1 attack roaches? I don't see how lings will do anything at that point. Also 1 base roach will have a fast lair out for roach speed so I always get ovi speed too and I'll see that spire coming up way before it's finished, so I have so much time to prepare an attack and get hydra. I just don't see how it works.
Yeah, +1 attack Roaches seem pretty common. I usually either have Muta's out by the time they get the +1 attack and move on me, or just play the old hit-and-run game to threaten a backstab, and just generally buy time until the Muta's pop or I have a significant econ advantage. I have lost to a few really solid timing pushes, but I've usually done something wrong in that case as well, like failing to pressure him early, or getting greedy and droning too much, or having too late of a Spire.
It's probably not the best thing to do, but I find it a lot more fun then 1 base Roach mirrors.
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On April 06 2010 01:48 w_Ender_w wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2010 00:56 Floophead_III wrote:
Have you faced +1 attack roaches? I don't see how lings will do anything at that point. Also 1 base roach will have a fast lair out for roach speed so I always get ovi speed too and I'll see that spire coming up way before it's finished, so I have so much time to prepare an attack and get hydra. I just don't see how it works. Yeah, +1 attack Roaches seem pretty common. I usually either have Muta's out by the time they get the +1 attack and move on me, or just play the old hit-and-run game to threaten a backstab, and just generally buy time until the Muta's pop or I have a significant econ advantage. I have lost to a few really solid timing pushes, but I've usually done something wrong in that case as well, like failing to pressure him early, or getting greedy and droning too much, or having too late of a Spire. It's probably not the best thing to do, but I find it a lot more fun then 1 base Roach mirrors.
If I smell speedlings (or whenever I go 1 base roach), my first 100 gas go to +1 ranged attack. There is now way you get your mutas out so fast.
But in general - since the game has been out for only so long - anything can work, because there are no well-established BOs or strategies. I've actually lost to mutalisks twice today, mostly because I early expanded and saw him getting roaches off one base. So, I kept massing roaches, feeling way ahead because of my earlier expansion. And then I had 8 mutas in my base.
This kinda sucks, now I feel obligated to rush for lair even in ZvZ to get some scouting done.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EURXm.png)
