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So just tonight I've finally been promoted to Platinum league. I have been working very hard to improve to this point, and I have saved every replay since the ladder reset, and named them according to what I race I was playing against, who won and in which league they were in. The vast, vast majority of losses I have incurred were against platinum Terrans, after I finally figured out how to handle ZvP.
I'd by the way be happy to upload some replays to illustrate what I'm about to say, if someone requests that I do so.
So what I'm usually up against is this:
First off, possibly a reaper. This is not every game, but often enough. The best counter seems to be speedlings, but they quickly lose viability as the next step in the barrage of harassment is Hellions. Most often four of them, sometimes dropped by medivac and other times they just zip right into the mineral line and start toasting drones. If I haven't already lost to the reapers, that is.
So what I need here is roaches. I could try putting Spine Crawlers in the mineral line of both my main and my expansion, but it seems easy for terran to just come back with eight hellions and completely ignore the crawlers while killing every drone I've made. I can't engage with hydras or lings because they toast in seconds.
Now if I manage to hold all of this off without losing the game, which I often do, what happens next is one of two things. Either Terran comes at me with banshees, sometimes with cloak, or they just expand a bunch while I mend my broken economy.
Now suddenly I need hydras.
I've tried one-basing and I've tried 14 pool 16 hatch, but it seems as if Terran dictates my every move, and at no point am I actually in control of my build. I have to tech switch two or three times at Terrans say-so, and if I mess up just one little thing I'm done for. Most of the time against terran I open speedlings, transition to roaches as soon as possible to intercept the hellions and make my lair while the hellion harrassment is going on so I can get hydras out in time to snipe drops and banshees. During all this I'm supposed to find the gas to make an overseer or two, and rush to infestors for when the late game comes.
If I make it this far, I get punked by all kinds of unit compositions. Thor/Marauder, Hellion/Marauder, Siege Tank/Marauder, anything with Marauders. Especially if they have Ravens, and especially especially if they superexpand rather than going banshees. With Hellions roaming about, I feel like I can't leave my base without losing everything. Going mutas seems incredibly hard to pull off, and incredibly easy to shut down by a terran who scans once in a while. (I mean Terran can build two thors and some turrets and just march across the map to my base, and I HAVE TO defend with mutas or else I'm toast and I'm still toast because the mutas die. I do this all the time in ZvZ with hydras vs ppl who go mutas and I seem to win every time.)
This is not a balance QQ, rather what I'm asking is, what is a good build for Zerg against this kind of opponent? Do I stay on one base? Do I hide an expansion? Do I try nydus worms? Baneling bust? 400 lings? I'm fucking clueless. I want to improve further, but this is the biggest brick wall I've come up against yet. Any help, especially with replays to illustrate, would really make my day.
TL:DR, Having probs in ZvT, hate my life, gimme a build that doesn't get harassed to smithereens and maybe has some map control at some point, I don't know, maybe.
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try a 6-8 pool, fast lings and you can fuck his eco pretty hard as long as you get in before he walls it off (you will probably lose your lings but take out as many workers/distract as long as possible) while expanding yourself, keep occasionally pumping lings to get him on edge but get some roaches/hydras/mutas or whatever you feel would be effective against him
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MUTAS
early mutas like completely wtfrape me
most zergs that obliterate me usually go for lings first with speed,
then mutas if the terran is commiting too much to the harass if not then go hydra infestor, try scouting a lot and make a nydus in the T's main if hes moving out.
even if you go hydraling infestor, when your econ starts getting overwhelming, get ONLY AIR, like show up with 15 mutas and make T's life hell.
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One spine crawler in your mineral line negates both reapers and hellions. Then you can safely tech to roaches and eventually mutas.
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lol Cheesing is not the solution.
Reaper harass can be killed with only ling... dont need speed lings... Put 1-2 spine crawler at your main and wait around 4 ling per reaper... he wont be messing a lot. Add the queen in the mineral line or in the back of it and watch the result.
If you expend in a way that its in front of your main... its a lot easier after that (like in lost temple). If he goes 4 helions... Just bring the 1-2 spine you build at your main at your nat. If he goes more helion... add hydra and micro them. it take a lot for helion without the upgrade to kill 3-4 hydras. Dont let them attack in line and stay close to your defense. If he goes up your ramp, you should prevent that by putting your queen there.
If your expend isnt in front of your main... you have 2-3 possibility, go for roach (which i dont recommand) or expand creep with queen and do the same as above (i recommand but risky until you got proper spine crawler placement) or build 1-2 more spine... Spine crawler doesnt cost that much and are really good against early harass and are even good for early push... so its no money lost. You can focus more on your economy while getting 3-4 hydra or something to defend yourself.
playing top 15-10 plat as P and Z
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Well first of all, speedling do counter helions before the igniter upgrade. Here's my gameplan against terran (1250ish elo platinum zerg) :
- Scout on 10, pool on 14
- If you see a tech lab on the barrack (reapers), get speedling asap and stay on one base untill you feel safe. After the harassment is over you can expend and play standard or get banneling and do an all-in attack. (If theres a tech lab and no reaper harass, get fast lair to scout and counter banshees)
- If you see a reactor on the barrack (helions or MMM) I make 3-4 roaches before expending and then I transition to standard play. Remimber that against helions your queen can block your choke which makes dealing with the harass way easier.
- If no addon on barrack : expend and get fast lair to scout what's going on asap.
From there its a simple game of counter. You need to scout well and produce the right units in the right amounts (this is what I call standard play btw) :
- Speedlings against thors and marauders unless theres too much marine/medivac.
- Roaches everytime theres not alot of marauders.
- Bannelings everytime theres alot of marines
- Hydras everytime but the number can vary alot (mass or support).
- Infestors rarely rushed but always present in some numbers, rushed against thors (to counter thor drops)
- Mutalisks if theres not alot of marines/thors or he's expending alot.
- Broodlords always if you can safely get the tech.
... That or you can do a banneling burst, still working 80% of the time at my level of play.
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The best counter to reapers is the positioning, a queen can defend 3 reapers max. lings in the position where reapers are going to jump just anihilate them. These last thing is easier on some maps like steppes of war.
Then to defend the hellions i prefer spine crawler over roaches with queen blocking one path and lings the other.
Banshees can be stopped with queens if done proprely, just make a 3rd queen if by the time his hellion harras is off you dont see him expoing. If he didnt go banshee you can use this queen to extend creep and for your next base. If he goes banshe you can defend with your queens against the 2 first, but i recommend making 2 more as soon as you see the 1st one, maybe 5 queens is too much but i prefer to be safe than sorry.
I like to go directly to muta, and transition into baneling hydra if he goes bio, or more roach heavy with some infestor if he goes mech. Just harras with your muta (dont have to kill really that much) and then expand and drone a lot while making tons of baneling hydra.
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On May 05 2010 09:16 D10 wrote:
MUTAS
early mutas like completely wtfrape me
most zergs that obliterate me usually go for lings first with speed,
then mutas if the terran is commiting too much to the harass if not then go hydra infestor, try scouting a lot and make a nydus in the T's main if hes moving out.
even if you go hydraling infestor, when your econ starts getting overwhelming, get ONLY AIR, like show up with 15 mutas and make T's life hell.
dont agree. mutas are one of the easiest units to counter as T. not only does it give me a reason and easy way to transition into heavy mech (with some rauders) and esp lategame 2-3 thors (with 1-0/2-0 upgrade)RAPE mutas.
broodlors are a different story tho. and ofc mixing in some mutas is great when you have infestors to NP the thors. but going heavy on them late isnt a good idea imho.a slight fuckup and a volley from 3 thors results in 1k mins/gas worht of units lost.
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To counter reapers get speedlings.
Just FE, plop a bunch of crawlers and build according to scouting.
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I've been trying to get 3 infestors out asap after I get about 8 hydras out after watching artosis's stream. He goes roach then infestors some games before hydra den which I thought was interesting. I'm not confident enough in my scouting yet to do that.
As far as helions, you can hold off with speedlings. You need speedlings against reapers since lings are slower off creep than reapers. Machine had good ling play against cauthonluck in ITL 6.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=117793
which just goes to http://www.livestream.com/iccup
Keep scrolling right it was on may 29th.
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ZvT is currently my best matchup.
I currently try to put some ling harass early, try to keep him behind his wall.
As soon as I can I go blings, and suicide them right into his wall. 5 blings destroy his supply depot wall, and hopefully supply block him for at least a bit. The blings are just to force him to keep rebuilding his wall/marines while I tech to Mutas or hydra/infestor. Once I have a good sized force I move in for the kill.
Mutas if he's going for rauders, infestors if he is going for thors.
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I'm high silver so I play a lot of gold ZvT and some plat. I win almost all my ZvT games, using speedlings/banelings. Baneling busts work great unless they've really massed the marauders early so their "wall" is basically all marauders once you blow the buildings, and your lings have nowhere to go. Also, banelings blow hellions sky-high. It might be tricky if they're microing well and kiting, but if they're busy attacking drones etc, banelings do the job.
You mentioned you figured out ZvP. How? Got any good links? I've been losing way way too many of those...
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This isn't directly related to the OP's entire problem, but I will say that there are some relatively straight-forward ways to counter the baneling bust as terran. I think my personal fav is actually just dropping the depots and moving marauders on to the ramp to take the baneling hits. At which point you move them back across the depots and bring them back up.
Yes you can counter this by simply micro'ing banelings etc etc but I'm just saying that if you fail at baneling busting you're in big trouble.
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Seems like you need to be using more mutalisks. For the harrassment just position your speedlings, spinecrawlers and queens well and they shouldn't be able to do much. If he gets a lot of them + igniter upgrade then put a roach den down. You should be very close to mutalisks by then though so if he continues making them he'll die.
Here's what mutalisks do to terran. First of all they force them to get anti air. Most common reaction used to be marines, lots of them. But banelings clean up marines so you won't see that much anymore. If you do use banelings/muta to win. Marines die to banelings and the mutas clean up the marauder/medivac left over.
Instead of going marines most go for thors. This is actually easier to handle. You still go mutas because you need him to react properly. But instead of banelings you get roaches and a couple infestors. From there its as simple as taking over a few thors and using the 250mm cannon to stun and kill the others. The roaches will clean up the rest.
You're either using Mutas or Roaches as the core of your army so don't forget that and go into a fight with a lop sided amount. If you end the fight and you lose all your mutas even if you killed his AA you still will probably lose the fight. The same goes for roaches if you lose them all your support units will not be able to finish the fight. This is most commonly happening when you're fighting against a 3/3 MMM terran who's just spamming units at you. Pay attention to your army composition or you may lose your upper hand.
End game is just broodlords. Ultras if you're beating him badly enough. He shouldn't be able to stop you after your first expansion is saturated. Nydus and spread overlords all over the map if he's dropping your expos. Nydus rocks for this. Just make sure you see it coming with overlord scouts.
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Hey, I'm ranked ~13 in plat division 4;
I open every ZvT with 15hatch 14pool straight into double queens when my expansion hatch comes up. Queens do well against reapers on creep. If I scout them going hellions I'll just make 2 spine crawlers at opposite sides of my expansion to protect against it and I'll block my ramp so there are no drive-bys. After that its 2hatch muta (for map control) and then a transition to whatever hes trying to beat you with. Depending on the map, if you can do well with a muta harass and contain him (this is pretty effective against mid level plat players) you can pretty much outmacro him and win the game like that. The scary ones are the ones with great macro who will effectively pick off your expansions.
The problem with terran is that there is just a bunch of openings they can do vs. you and its hard to predict it because of their block. Anyway I hope this helped 
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As a T I feel like zerg is easymode. Like the OP said it's really easy to dictate the direction of the game. The only thing that's tripped me up recently is the insane range of mind control on thors, but with skill this can be avoided with good focusing on the infestors with marauders before he makes too much of a roach wall.
TvP on the other hand, has the opposite problem :x
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I've just recently switched from random to zerg so i'm not too experienced with the MU but i've been going speedlings into mutalisks. The speedlings take care of any reaper harass along with doing a pretty good job of preventing the hellion harass with the surround.
After the initial muta harass i transition into hyrdas or roaches depending on how they go about countering the mutas. But with the mass lings and muta you should have map control which plays into zergs macro style so much better. I have 3 or so replays from today if you want i can upload them. Hope this helps.
Forgot to add i'm ranked 8th in my plat league which isn't that great of a feat but just so you know it's coming from someone in plat. Also i can play terran if you wanna play some games. My name on battle.net is stalissi.nrd.
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On May 05 2010 09:21 Thamoo wrote:
Well first of all, speedling do counter helions before the igniter upgrade. Here's my gameplan against terran (1250ish elo platinum zerg) :
- Scout on 10, pool on 14
- If you see a tech lab on the barrack (reapers), get speedling asap and stay on one base untill you feel safe. After the harassment is over you can expend and play standard or get banneling and do an all-in attack. (If theres a tech lab and no reaper harass, get fast lair to scout and counter banshees)
- If you see a reactor on the barrack (helions or MMM) I make 3-4 roaches before expending and then I transition to standard play. Remimber that against helions your queen can block your choke which makes dealing with the harass way easier.
- If no addon on barrack : expend and get fast lair to scout what's going on asap.
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I do what this guy does on my opening and pay careful attention to that barracks addon terran opts for.
I gave up on fast expo (15 hatch before pool) cause there's too many ways to screw it over, especially on all the 2 player maps. Proxy rax reaper or quick hellion will mess up your fast expo, even if you defend well you will lose drones, and you will be behind. Based on my drone and ovie scouting (I scout on 10th drone 4 player maps, 13th on 2 player) I can squeeze out a roach + queen by 18 supply before the quickest cheese hits and counter it really hard. If I scout no quick cheese rushes you can skip roach den and set up a slightly delayed expo.
Bottom line is play it safe, 15 hatch before pool openings are suicide, I can't make them work reliably enough at the platinum level and a slightly later hatch even past 20 supply doesn't seem to slow me down much if at all. If you don't need those early roaches (or lings, I prefer the roaches though cause of hellions) you can skip them based on scouting and just maynard drones to your nat and transfer a 2nd queen you had building before your natural hatch popped.
The roach option means faster gas which lets you transition into some lair tech answers to quickly counter banshee's if you think they're coming, I like this opening cause it kills 2 birds with 1 stone, early marauders and hellions are stopped dead and you can deal with banshee's without making extra queens (queens really aren't an answer to banshee's, imo) or wasting minerals on static defense.
As zerg just play the wait and see game vs terran, don't commit to making an army until you know they're going to attack. I keep ovies posted around terran's base, so I only make an early hydra or muta to stop banshees once I actually see one, by the time they make it your mineral line you should already have a solid counter freshly hatched, same idea applies to those early 2 roaches or lings before 18 supply, only make them if you scout something fishy otherwise focus on getting your natural up asap.
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vs standard terran build go for map control and dont go mutas unless you have him well scouted and you think it is appropriate.. better to go hydra roach guardian
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make 2 spine crawlers in your main and 2 in your expo. Make 5-8 roaches and hold them on the ramp. Move the 2 SC from the main to the expo so they can attack the bridge. Easy anti hellions really. they are gunna get some drones, can't stop it, but at this point you can invest in some more roaches to mutas.
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EPT
