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As zerg, I usually open up with speedlings, and add a baneling nest early if I scout supply depots at the ramp, trying to do some early aggression while I expand.
I can usually get some damage done to the terran player with a baneling bust, if not killing him, setting him behind a little.
However, lately, Ive been having lots of trouble with terrans going pure marauders.
2 marauders in front of the choke effectively stops any baneling bust attempt, and then he keeps on making pure marauders.
A big ball of stimmed marauders easily takes out the same ressources worth of zerglings it seems. Roaches, are obviously a quite poor choice vs marauders. Hydras seem to be about equal with marauders, but cost more gas. Mutas, take way too long to actually kill the marauders, if I go mutas and he does a marauder push, he will kill my expo quite easily before the mutas kill off the marauders. Spine crawlers tend to not help me very much, since they are armored, and marauders have nearly the same range.
So for now, I really have pretty much no idea on how to counter pure marauder spam with stim.
Is the only option to forgo all early aggression, and just go for a macro game, beating the marauders by having double the money invested in a hydra-ling army?
Surely there must be something else possible, but I just cant find out what, it seems that marauders come out equal or ahead cost for cost, against pretty much any zerg unit.
Help me please, any advice on what unit composition to use is welcome, and any solution that doesnt involve having twice the amount of money invested in my army would be awesome.
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You need BOTH hydralisk and speedling. Speedlings tank 4 shots for 25 mineral. Their numbers also make marauder slowdown less powerful (compared to zealots). Hydralisks are not great by themselves, they're slow and have fairly low hp for their cost though they do more dps than any other unit in it's price range. They really need zerglings or roaches to tank the shots. You choose zergling or roach depending on enemy's unit choice.
"Is the only option to forgo all early aggression, and just go for a macro game, beating the marauders by having double the money invested in a hydra-ling army? "
I don't really understand this point. If you don't want to play a macro game, are you looking for some weird gimmick play? If you're going for something fancy, maybe get infestors and use fungal growth to put them out of position.
edit: I re-read your point and understand somewhat better. I believe a failed baneling bust means you're gonna be pretty damn behind in tech, especially if they blocked with minimal loss of workers
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Yeah, in the lategame broodlords are quite awesome.
But what about the whole midgame before that? Early pushes right as stim comes online, Or even earlier, right around the time you get lair up?
It takes a looooong time to get broodlords up. Do you just ruch for them, and hope he doesnt scout? that seems suicidal.
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I don't really understand this point. If you don't want to play a macro game, are you looking for some weird gimmick play?
Well not some wierd gimmick play, rather I mean something that will beat stimmed marauders with equal ressources invested, in the early to mid game.
It isnt really very hard to win when you have an army double the size of your opponent, and are getting more money than him. I dont have too much trouble with that, that part is good.
What I need help with, is something to fend off marauders, with equal resources invested.
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As a Terran player, I can say the biggest bane to pure marauders is any type of aerial unit. If you see your opponent going heavy rauders, toss down a spire and get some mutas up. If the opponent has any skill at all, he'll toss either some marines or vikings into his main force, both of which make your speedlings and banelings much more effective, because viking (which he needs to counter potential muta's) in air mode can't attack, which is less minerals to rauders, and marines are just meat puppets for any sizable ling force.
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When I saw the (misleading) title I laughed.
On topic: I don't play Zerg, but I'd imagine that fungal growth and mutas would do very well. Fungal prevents marauder kiting, along with some good damage.
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just marauders. mass hydras or zerglings or go mutas good hydra/roach/infestor mix > then any MMM ball
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Ling/Hydra/Baneling especially if a failed bust. Banelings with the Lings and Hydras taking the damage can attack from the front and flank the back from maximum damage and uber rapage.
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On May 06 2010 12:35 xnub wrote:
just marauders. mass hydras or zerglings or go mutas good hydra/roach/infestor mix > then any MMM ball
No don't get hydras. Hydras suck by themselves vs bio. NEVER make roaches vs T bio. It's pointless and cost ineffective.
Vs low numbers pure speedling does fine (try to fight on creep if at all possible). Vs higher numbers either get mutas or go baneling/speedling. I did some tests the other day and banelings actually do quite well vs marauder balls.
Really the correct thing is to survive until mutas which force marines which allows you to go banelings >>> infestors. Marauder spam will lose to speedlings provided you position smartly and don't get caught without enough. Once you hit a large ball of marauders speedlings lose efficiency due to surface area vs damage so banelings become a good choice.
I haven't found a T-bio strat that doesn't plain die to speedling >>> muta >>> baneling >>> infestor >>> broodlord. I think that's the correct tech path to go vs bio builds.
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I'm a top gold terran atm and zerglings in large numbers are phenomenally annoying when there is a high dps unit with them to dish out the damage. Marauders do a lot of damage but they do it in large chunks slowly which makes them really awful at killing zerglings since a zergling force has its hp spread out over so many targets plus they block movement which makes it hard to get good position on the hydras or roaches or whatever it is that is putting the hurt on. Banelings are also not to be ruled out just because marauders have a lot of hp. It just means you need a lot of banelings. Banelings are also extremely frustrating when there are a substantial amount of speedlings running in with them because you can't kite move as easily as if you just a-move kite then the marauders will shoot the zerglings and you can't a-click individual banelings and kite because you will waste way too much time and damage on single targets.
In the later game I dread infestors way way more than I dread broodlords.
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Mutas:
If he pushes with marauders right as the spire finishes, He kills the expo without any problems, if you try to make a bunch of mutas, since you will have about 6-700 minerals less invested in your army at that point. Then, even if the mutas pop out, by the time they kill the marauders left, your expo will be dead. And then both stimmed marines, and vikings are a very cost effective answer to mutas, mutas cant take part in a head-on fight, they are only good for harassing, not for actually fighting, its even more units which can be fought off very effectively.
And banelings: Hm. I must admit, I havent tried them out yet. Though I cant imagine them being all that good tbh. You need 6 banelings to kill a marauder if he stimmed. That means each baneling needs to hit about 4 marauders to break even on cost. Assuming none die before reaching the target.
I guess that could actually work out. Ill give it a shot, see what happens. Id need to hit them while they are still a ball though, if the concave forms, it will be near impossible to break even on cost I suspect. It could work out though.
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On May 06 2010 12:44 Floophead_III wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2010 12:35 xnub wrote:
just marauders. mass hydras or zerglings or go mutas good hydra/roach/infestor mix > then any MMM ball No don't get hydras. Hydras suck by themselves vs bio. NEVER make roaches vs T bio. It's pointless and cost ineffective. Vs low numbers pure speedling does fine (try to fight on creep if at all possible). Vs higher numbers either get mutas or go baneling/speedling. I did some tests the other day and banelings actually do quite well vs marauder balls. Really the correct thing is to survive until mutas which force marines which allows you to go banelings >>> infestors. Marauder spam will lose to speedlings provided you position smartly and don't get caught without enough. Once you hit a large ball of marauders speedlings lose efficiency due to surface area vs damage so banelings become a good choice. I haven't found a T-bio strat that doesn't plain die to speedling >>> muta >>> baneling >>> infestor >>> broodlord. I think that's the correct tech path to go vs bio builds.
Pure marauders vs pure hydras ? hydras win hands down /shrug same food count of course
oh and he was talking about marauder balls not bio with rines or anything
Roachs/hydra/infestor > MMM ball with same food count
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giant marauder balls lose to giant speed upgraded baneling/speedling balls..
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On May 06 2010 14:10 xnub wrote:
Pure marauders vs pure hydras ? hydras win hands down /shrug same food count of course
Hm, well did you try it out for yourself, or are you just arm waving? Because personally, that has not been my experience.
Stimmed marauders do about the same dps to hydras as hydras do back to them. (taking into account the armor on marauders)
And marauders have 25 more life than hydras.
And marauders can kill hydras cleanly, hydras waste some dps on killing marauders, since it takes 9 and a half shots to kill a marauder, and they cant fire half shots.
In my personal experience, a pure hydra vs stimmed marauder fight in equal numbers, is not clearly in the hydra's favor at all.
Also, in equal numbers, the zerg player payed more for his army, hydras are more expensive than marauders.
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On May 06 2010 12:56 ymirheim wrote:
I'm a top gold terran atm and zerglings in large numbers are phenomenally annoying when there is a high dps unit with them to dish out the damage. Marauders do a lot of damage but they do it in large chunks slowly which makes them really awful at killing zerglings since a zergling force has its hp spread out over so many targets plus they block movement which makes it hard to get good position on the hydras or roaches or whatever it is that is putting the hurt on. Banelings are also not to be ruled out just because marauders have a lot of hp. It just means you need a lot of banelings. Banelings are also extremely frustrating when there are a substantial amount of speedlings running in with them because you can't kite move as easily as if you just a-move kite then the marauders will shoot the zerglings and you can't a-click individual banelings and kite because you will waste way too much time and damage on single targets.
In the later game I dread infestors way way more than I dread broodlords.
this pretty much sums it up. +1
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Roaches will be destroyed instantly. banelings does extra against light units but marauders aren't light, but banelings are still effective. Infestors are very good because of fungal growth. an idea is to get two infestors to fungal growth the whole army, then chuck banelings at them then finish them with mass speedling (possibly with a couple hydras.)
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Mass zerglings only work if the marauder ball is small. Once it gets to be a certain size, there is only so much surface area available for zerglings to attack, making the marauder ball almost impossible to kill.
As a Platinum Zerg, I usually go ling/roach/hydra. The roaches are actually quite effective against marauder balls since they take almost as many marauder hits as a hydra does, but for much less cost. Let the roaches be your meatshield, hydras to do the real damage, and zerglings just as a bonus.
Things I'll be trying: fungal growth hit-and-run, muta/ling/roach.
Btw, Banelings do nothing to marauder balls.
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I haven't played Zerg much, but I thought Fungal Growth was hilariously awesome against Marauder balls. Also, catching a group of Medivacs, full of M&Ms, over an open chasm with Fungal Growth is the coolest thing ever.
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On May 06 2010 14:40 FrostFire626 wrote:Btw, Banelings do nothing to marauder balls.
attack from front with hydra/zergling. fungal growth. do a flank with baneling. works wonders.
or have a million banelings and hydras. that's worked for me too.
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EPT
