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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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Just baneling bust all in it works for me like 90% of the time. I haven't played macro vs a Terran in a long time.
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I had the same problem yesterday. Went for baneling bust, got blocked, scouted mass marauders. I made 4-5 muta's to harass his mineral line while I took an expansion.
He reacted with pure marauders/vikings. One tech switch to hydras later the fight was pretty much over.
Hydra's were most likely extra effective against the vikings, but the marauder army seemed to melt quite effectively against speedling/hydra. I find that if you can force the terran to tech switch, you clearly have the advantage.
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going mass rauder against zerg is as dumb as you can get as a Terran player.
throwing in 4 hellions and 1 thor for every 12 marauders will net you much better results.
Hellions in general eat through hydra's and lings, esp in numbers.
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On May 06 2010 14:50 synesthesia wrote:
Just baneling bust all in it works for me like 90% of the time. I haven't played macro vs a Terran in a long time.
It's probably a bad idea to suggest to him to do a risky all-in build no matter what against terran every game, especially when that build is easily countered by players of a certain level.
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i don't know if people have been doing this, but burrowing your banelings in a good position then exploding them is a very good thing to do, then come in and swarm with lings / hydra / infestors, it makes me cum so hard when i get to explode my banelings, i feel like i explode too
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On May 06 2010 12:31 Satallgeese wrote:
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.
Ummm, going mutas is a death sentence since all it takes to negate in army-army fights is a few thors. Spire takes forever to build and the money you spend on mutas would 100% be better spent on hydralisks. Mutas are for harrass not army.
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On May 06 2010 16:47 faction123 wrote:
Ummm, going mutas is a death sentence since all it takes to negate in army-army fights is a few thors. Spire takes forever to build and the money you spend on mutas would 100% be better spent on hydralisks. Mutas are for harrass not army.
QFT. But they're really good at what they do there.
Good side effect is most terrans over commit when they see mutas. Is this because they expect to fight them army to army? Don't build 14 vikings when you only see 5 mutas, you will get owned by hydra tech.
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Muta baneling into hydra like day vs tasteless game 1 in the hdh, any combo of baneling ling hydra infestor, or you can be baller and go roach burrow tunneling like slush in the mlg against cauthonluck.
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baneling bust all-in:
As said, I usually go for early lings, and then banelings if I scouted depots at the wall. But 2 marauders on hold at the ramp pretty much stops a baneling bust cold in its tracks, no matter how All-in it is. 6 banelings to take down the 2 marauders, and then another 6 banelings to take down the supply depots, and then enough speedlings to do any damage is just not going to happen against someone who is simply massing marauders and not teching.
Mutas are nice if the terran is sitting in his base passively, but if he is aggressively pushing to kill your expo, a big ball of stimmed marauders is going to do much more damage to your base than a few lose mutas can do to his, and mutas also cant effectively stop a marauder push from destroying your base.
Roaches, and burrow? Are you joking? Im talking about a terran player pushing aggressively with stimmed marauders. Are you really suggesting investing heavily in roaches, and then spending more money on burrow, and then even more on burrowed movement, while stimmed marauders are pushing your choke?
Banelings seem like they could work, I will definitely try that, I have been underusing them as an actual combat unit so far.
But all those other cute harassment tricks, while nice, dont actually work if the terran player knows his army is superior, and just pushes to destroy your base.
A base trade against terran and floating buildings doesnt work that well, if he decides to actually attack you when his army is superior, and all zerg has to defend is a few cute harrassment tricks, like mutas or burrowed roaches.
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pure marauders shouldn't beat a ton of zerglings. Not before you have some tier 2 units out. If he is going 1 base 3 rax marauder, maybe you are overdroning. When do you start building lings? I would build them a little earlier if you see a ton of marauders, and tech to hydra.. The typical terran attack has some hellions added in there.. reactor hellion harass to marauder, and then attack. This is a strong push for Terran. To stop it you get 1 or 2 crawlers.. (These are for fending off the initial hellion harass), a ton of lings, and tech to either hydras or mutas. Until then, you have to hold it off with lings. If you can get a full army surround where the hellions can't fire on the lings too well you'll be in great shape. It really comes down to flanking and positioning.
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I'm a T player top 10 my division (plat).
Basically it depends on the stage of the game. Early on, your not going to get a more effective counter than simply speedlings with a good position. it takes a bit to get mass stimmed maru with medivacs..and is generally done in response to rouch/hydra armies. If this happens you can:
a) get fungal growth and make sure to micro it well. fungal back up, and and your hydras should do well
b) do a mass muta sweep..baneling his marines if he has them...fight vikings head on (mutas > vikings head to head), parasite if he gets thors
c)broodlords...make sure you dont get them killed by vikings
I also play zerg some...i personally find baneling/speedling busts early on to be an effective harrass (good players rarely lose to this..so don't go all in) and defense. meanwhile you want to get an expo and get a large number of muta...most games can be won with ling/muta..sometimes adding ether infestors or broodlords will be neccessary...In short baneling > marine, muta > bane busted T.....just remember that stimmed marines or thors will murder your muta piles...thats what all their mobility is for.
I generally shy away from hydra/rouch armies..because T is just too effective against them imo. 2 base v 2 base early on and getting a ground army is a great way to get rolled by MMM armies.
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Stop doing allin attacks then. There's no secret bo that's going to get you an easy win early on. After the baneling bust fails you've lost unless the t screws up.
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yeah, i've had alot of sucess with hydra+infestor.. will probably start adding in the speedlings midgame (i always have more minerals than gas midgame if i go hydras)
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In my opinion infestor are the key!
They can stop marauders movement dealing them damage so you can flank properly without fear of kiting (also an infestor+muta does the job..he simply can't reach your expansion XD)
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Regarding fungal on marauders, you have to use shift+f for the smartcasting right? Not sure if im doing it wrong, but often i get off 1 fungal and the other infestors just walk in and die...
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infestors.
they seem to be the key unit now in zvt and are amazingly good against really EVRYTHING the terran will throw at you.
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I don't think that baneling bust + speedlings is normal aggression? I essentially only harass expansion attempts - if you insist on baneling busting him, you are much behind unless you do a ton of damage. You could experiment with going earlier gases and lair, and trying to get enough mutas to 2 shot a marauder in time for his big push (~6 or 7?), but you would probably have to delay your expo and economy even longer and would put you in a worse and worse position as the game goes on.
Honestly, it's just important to have enough shit. Hydra/roach armies do perfectly well, especially with infestor backup. That being said I expand on 14 or 16, making the T have to harass me and not the other way around.
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On May 06 2010 20:14 exog wrote:
Regarding fungal on marauders, you have to use shift+f for the smartcasting right? Not sure if im doing it wrong, but often i get off 1 fungal and the other infestors just walk in and die...
Either f and then shift+left click or just multiple f + left clicks. As long as you do not a-move or right click, they will not move in. Just make sure you have them grouped separately of course.
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Fungal growth=amazing. Slows and dps, with 2 or 3 popping out over them is perfect for speedlings to surround and destroy.
hydra support would be good too.
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On May 06 2010 14:10 xnub wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2010 12:44 Floophead_III wrote: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
ur seriously suggesting using more expensive unit, which comes at t2, vs t1 unit, early marauder push , will obliterate pretty much all you have, and you wont have hydras, unless you went 1 base mass hydras, but he will get some marines and some more marauders, and still will run over you..
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The OP was describing what happened when he did a baneling bust build and found that the T had countered with Marauders on the ramp while pumping more to counter the baneling bust. It's key to scout the ramp before morphing your lings into banelings imo. If you see that the wall won't be cracked you need to be saving units for the inevitable counter push and scouting to see what composition you need to make to counter his next step.
Baneling bust is nearly all-in, but you have a sizable army of speedlings to catch an early push out in the open if he tries aggression.
Here's my usual flow, doesn't work 100% of the time to get me to midgame but it's damned better than losing all the time like I did before.
-When you get critical mass of lings start fixing your econ or teching.
-Scout the ramp
-If marauders blocking it or wall is too thick, don't morph those banelings.
-Keep a scout for his push, but get your lings in a position to catch the marauders in a bad position.
-Scout his next step
-Pick your next step from your scouting. (+1 lings while working on econ, tech to hydra/infest/muta, etc. etc.)
-If he pushes out you really have to choose the location of the fight (get a nice surround, surround near some spine crawlers, just delay him enough, etc.)
He can be really far ahead of you on econ at this point and the Marauder ball you describe just may be too much against speedlings (especially with the potential stim), but if you play smart you can catch an advantageous moment and put that nice ~30 zergling force to use to surround the fatties.
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I find that im usually not behind by very much when going for a baneling bust and it doesnt work out. (as long as I dont fail and lose all my units uselessly ofc).
I mean by the time the baneling+speedling timing is there, I have a queen, and an expo is being built, along with a reasonable amount of drones.
Catching up shouldnt be too much of an issue, as long as I find a way to hold him off without having to invest double the amount of money on army compared to him. Gonna see how more banelings work out.
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Moar Fungal Growth. Moar Hydra. Less other bad units.
Edit: Alternatively, Mutas lolol
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Fungal growth works wonders.
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Hydra/ling/bling + fungal > MMM whether its pure marauders or not. Spine crawlers are also cost effective if you can put them up in such a way he can't pick them off 1 at a time.
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Firstly, don't go baneling bust against terran every game, because baneling bust doesn't do well vs. early marauders (as you have seen).
early-game: use speedlings, speedlings beat marauders for cost until marauders get medivacs and/or +1 armor
mid-game: use mutas, even if you lose your expo, you will be ahead since you can kill off his marauders and then harass his base while rebuilding your hatch
late-game: use broodlords
If he's going pure marauder, don't make any crawlers, don't make any roaches, don't make any banelings. Once you get lair, hydras are ok, but mutas are far better.
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On May 06 2010 14:32 morimacil wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I have always found when I have Hydra's and my opponent has Marauder I can win the fight or he retreats.
Marauders do not rape hydra's like they rape roaches at all... So saying Hydra aren't recommended is dumb I always go hydra as they are a good unit against both T and P.
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On May 06 2010 23:39 Smikis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2010 14:10 xnub wrote:On May 06 2010 12:44 Floophead_III wrote: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 ur seriously suggesting using more expensive unit, which comes at t2, vs t1 unit, early marauder push , will obliterate pretty much all you have, and you wont have hydras, unless you went 1 base mass hydras, but he will get some marines and some more marauders, and still will run over you..
Shut up noob.
OP, I suggest using speedlings, hydras and infestors. Mass marauder is a stupid strategy and your speedlings will be able to keep toe to toe with his maurauders unti mid game where the ball is too big for effective speedling rape. At that point, you will have infestors and hydras which easily clean up on maurauders.
When you do use mutas, and he has a superior ground army, you want to just focus on harass to make him stay at base and waste resources getting turrets or vikings. If he attacks before you were able to effectively harass with mutas and beats you, then you didn't produce enough lings.
As with all scenarios, you should be scouting your opponent to stay on top of his strategy. If he starts adding a lot of marines, then you can either add more infestors to rely on fungal growth or you can mix in banelings.
On fungal growth: you can fungal the back of the ball and micro your units back slightly to fight fewer marauders at once. Or if you have enough infestors, you can fungal the whole thing and get a concave position on him.
The marauder strategy will only get deadly once he introduces another unit, particularly the raven. But as far as just mass marauders... speedlings -> hydra/infestor.
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Marauders take 9 shots to kill a hydra, assuming equal upgrades, becauset he hydra will regen 1 hp during the fight. Well, atl east 1 hp. That said, as a new Zerg player (from terran), once the Marauder ball starts hitting critical mass fighting it seems almost impossible as there is no logical counter to it. You can throw out lings because the fuckers are hardly worth their minerals after 5 mins, throw out banelings because marauders are too tanky, throw out roaches and Ultralisks because they are armoured and what are you left with? Air units (which, whilst quite useful you cannot easily transition to a muta/ling army from your hydra/w/e army because of the insane amount of gas you need to pump pure mutas NOW) and hydralisks and infestors (fungal growth tickles marauders BUT I do see some use for it in disrupting the Terran's firing line, neural parasite is not good vs marauders but definitey against those tanks behind them and infested terran is lolpants).
As mentioned, Hydras are not great units. They are spammable, move quick on creep and are the only halfway decent AA you've got in your entire lineup. Still they are not great. They are very fragile and whilst they definitely do good dps that's good dps by Zerg standards, which is not comparable to thor/tank/collosus/immortal motherfuckery and the fact they are the only good main combat unit after 10 mins is tempered by the fact they cannot be allowed to be TOO good at GtG combat because they shoot air too (something the marauders admittedly don't do).
So how do zergs win? Well, straightforward. Expand like crazy and macro like crazy. Having shit units is well offset by having never ending streams of the pricks.
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On May 07 2010 02:53 iaguz wrote:
Marauders take 9 shots to kill a hydra, assuming equal upgrades, becauset he hydra will regen 1 hp during the fight. Well, atl east 1 hp. That said, as a new Zerg player (from terran), once the Marauder ball starts hitting critical mass fighting it seems almost impossible as there is no logical counter to it. You can throw out lings because the fuckers are hardly worth their minerals after 5 mins, throw out banelings because marauders are too tanky, throw out roaches and Ultralisks because they are armoured and what are you left with? Air units (which, whilst quite useful you cannot easily transition to a muta/ling army from your hydra/w/e army because of the insane amount of gas you need to pump pure mutas NOW) and hydralisks and infestors (fungal growth tickles marauders BUT I do see some use for it in disrupting the Terran's firing line, neural parasite is not good vs marauders but definitey against those tanks behind them and infested terran is lolpants).
As mentioned, Hydras are not great units. They are spammable, move quick on creep and are the only halfway decent AA you've got in your entire lineup. Still they are not great. They are very fragile and whilst they definitely do good dps that's good dps by Zerg standards, which is not comparable to thor/tank/collosus/immortal motherfuckery and the fact they are the only good main combat unit after 10 mins is tempered by the fact they cannot be allowed to be TOO good at GtG combat because they shoot air too (something the marauders admittedly don't do).
So how do zergs win? Well, straightforward. Expand like crazy and macro like crazy. Having shit units is well offset by having never ending streams of the pricks.
If there were a league below copper, would you be in it?
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Baneling bust is pretty easily countered.
But a good quick mass marauder timing push definitely takes finesse to beat. What I'm seeing as the key are either banelings, infestors, or a combination of both along with speedlings. Banelings are still really effective vs marauders, but you just have to have more of them and/or centrifugal hooks. I think the best play would probably be to make a lot of speedlings early and when you can make more. Get early lair (which can be worked into a variety of builds), and make an infestion pit and infestors as quickly as possible.Then make a baneling nest somewhat early so you have the baneling option. And the nice thing is that you can avoid making banelings until you see the push coming if you're scouting properly, but making them early isn't really going to hurt you in ZvT. I'm really curious about the timing but I bet you get an infestor or 2 with enough energy to fungal just in time. Tactically you just fungal the marauder ball, then move in with banelings and speedlings. This will negate the concussive shell kiting that they can do against only speedlings completely as they can't move and the banelings will do lots of instant damage, making them easy to clean up with speedlings that you can also be spawning as the battle is happening. I'm not sure at the moment which is better: zergling speed or lair with the first 100 gas. I suspect it's probably better to get lair first so you can get infestors going as quickly as possible because of how important they are, and it gives you a better build to transition to other things (mutas, hydras, roach tech) if you scout the need. Hydras seem like a bad choice vs this type of quick marauder-only push if you FE, and you should, because you won't quite have enough hydras because they just take too much damage. In theory hydras are a good counter, but timing-wise it's pretty tough to get that critical number.
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On May 06 2010 23:39 Smikis wrote:Show nested quote +On May 06 2010 14:10 xnub wrote:On May 06 2010 12:44 Floophead_III wrote: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 ur seriously suggesting using more expensive unit, which comes at t2, vs t1 unit, early marauder push , will obliterate pretty much all you have, and you wont have hydras, unless you went 1 base mass hydras, but he will get some marines and some more marauders, and still will run over you..
He was saying pure marauder was rolling him. He said he was able to try mutas/hydras and more so its not a early push and he can/has the tech by then. Also i was giving him a pure counter to pure marauders. To show they are not OP he is just not macroing or microing like he should be. Hydras would rape them but most likly he will have hydra/zerglings a very good counter.
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I don't think I've seen it mentioned but the +1 melee attack upgrade is critical for zerglings against marauders. And if you get to lair try to get the 2nd melee upgrade.
The difficult part of this build in my opinion is fending off a marauder push right as your hydra den is finishing. And I think it's most effective just to do lings with some small roach support. Yes roaches get owned but given their non-melee range they'll be able to do some extra dps to the marauders while your lings that can't hit them run around in circles. Also he probably won't be able to focus fire the roaches as well as he wants since lings will be disrupting his movement. Either way roaches and up'd zerglings do about the same DPS verse marauders.
I don't know whether or not to recommend early ground armor. M's do 10 damage so with 1 armor they'd do 9. Over 4 shots that is 36 damage but with heal you might be able to recoup some of that life, depending how quickly the zergling gets shot.
IF he brings helions, try to break off a group of 6 speedlings or roaches and chase them around... They shouldn't have pre-igniter since he probably won't have the gas for it. A good way to make him not bring helions is to hide your zerglings in some spot terrans don't usually scan, and make sure he sees your roach warren.
After lair tech is up if you can get mutalisks (which i would recommend over hydras) then you can just keep on going with muta/ling. When he makes thors make infestors. Don't really want to devote any more thought than that just because there's no set formula like "oh yeah you'll win if you get to lair tech". Only thing i'll suggest is fungal growth works well with ultralisks.
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On May 06 2010 14:32 morimacil wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Hydras do 14.46 dps on light
marauders do 10.45 on light stimed and lose 20 hp and last for only 15 sec then they are back to doing 6.67
Yes hydras take more shots to kill a marauder but they shoot under a sec were as a marauder even with the stim shoot alot slower.
None stim 10 on 10 hydras live with 5-6 avg
stim 10 on 10 hydras live with 3-4 avg
1250 min 400 gas Marauders
1000min 500 gas hydras
Both microed and played by humans larger balls still same hydras win.
Then in real battles add in zerglings/roachs to eat dmg weeeee rape. Roachs a bio ball zerglings a noob that is pushing marauders only
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10 marauders vs10 hydras is not the issue. Yea the hydras can take on small numbers of marauders, but if the terran gets like 50+ it is really hard, even with support units like infestors. Stim not only lets you do more dps in large battles but also makes the AI make an arc much faster which is a huge benefit in large battles.
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On May 08 2010 02:10 mawno wrote:
10 marauders vs10 hydras is not the issue. Yea the hydras can take on small numbers of marauders, but if the terran gets like 50+ it is really hard, even with support units like infestors. Stim not only lets you do more dps in large battles but also makes the AI make an arc much faster which is a huge benefit in large battles.
big #'s late games Roach/hydra/infestor RAPES MMM like hands down rapes. Fungal growth run away omg they are all stuck in one spot : O and hope they stimmed lol. Watch all the medvacs try and pop there life back up do it again fungal growth run. Weeeee Medvacs out of eng and he has a bunch of low hp units attack win.
and if you are playing def creep speed go go. Even without doing the kite fungal hydra/roach/infestor head on will win vs a MMM ball of the same food/size easy
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On May 07 2010 02:53 iaguz wrote:
Marauders take 9 shots to kill a hydra, assuming equal upgrades, becauset he hydra will regen 1 hp during the fight. Well, atl east 1 hp. That said, as a new Zerg player (from terran), once the Marauder ball starts hitting critical mass fighting it seems almost impossible as there is no logical counter to it. You can throw out lings because the fuckers are hardly worth their minerals after 5 mins, throw out banelings because marauders are too tanky, throw out roaches and Ultralisks because they are armoured and what are you left with? Air units (which, whilst quite useful you cannot easily transition to a muta/ling army from your hydra/w/e army because of the insane amount of gas you need to pump pure mutas NOW) and hydralisks and infestors (fungal growth tickles marauders BUT I do see some use for it in disrupting the Terran's firing line, neural parasite is not good vs marauders but definitey against those tanks behind them and infested terran is lolpants).
As mentioned, Hydras are not great units. They are spammable, move quick on creep and are the only halfway decent AA you've got in your entire lineup. Still they are not great. They are very fragile and whilst they definitely do good dps that's good dps by Zerg standards, which is not comparable to thor/tank/collosus/immortal motherfuckery and the fact they are the only good main combat unit after 10 mins is tempered by the fact they cannot be allowed to be TOO good at GtG combat because they shoot air too (something the marauders admittedly don't do).
So how do zergs win? Well, straightforward. Expand like crazy and macro like crazy. Having shit units is well offset by having never ending streams of the pricks.
lmao at calling hydras, roaches, mutas, or broodlords "shit units"
Zerg players have the most insane macro mechanic but continue to play the victim? Hydras are one of the best for-cost units in the game man.
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hydra/ling/bling/infestor
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Bling bust isn't early aggression. It puts you fairly all in.
If you're going for that early of a bling bust, a contingency plan is extremely hard to execute correctly. It's pretty damn all in and if you don't at least kill like all his scvs (if not win outright), you lose.
If you're expoing at the same time, there's really no way you can do so without not dying as your army will be lacking if you're putting money into the expo, specially if terran is going pure marauder. It's even 100x worse if they opened hellion. ling as an army is ok against marauder but if you're doing the bling bust build + an expo, you won't be able to keep up with his numbers.
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Calgary25981 Posts
Hydralisks do great against marauders wtf is going on in this thread?
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Hidra/ling . You just attack the marauder ball with it and when he kills your lings just back of with the hidras until reinforcements zerglings arrive so that you don't risk losing your whole army unless you are clearly winning .
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You just need to incorporate either hydra, muta or infestors with your speedlings and you will be good against pure marauder.
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hydras are great against marauders, but add 2 tanks to the mix and a handful of marines to defend them against lings and u can watch ur hydras melt from the tanks. Well positioned tanks also neutralize infestors because 1) it outrages the NP by a lot and 2) if NP does go off the marauders have enough range to ff the infestors down to minimize the dmg. Either way, hydras are great against pure marauder but tanks mess up the equation. You'll need air to deal with this army and force them to make more marines and fewer marauders from his rax. Even then it's hard on the T to babysit tanks and marauders with marines all the time while moving across the map and ravens aren't very good against muta because mutas can outfly the HSM.
However as someone who loses to T almost every game I shouldn't be talking....but my counterfeit 2 pennies are here anyway.
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op is doing it wrong imho.
What I do in zvt is 15pool or hatch and then get up a few crawlers and a roach warren while using a few lings to scout. The moment I see him moving out with any early aggression. I just start spamming roaches.
But this is not my goal, my goal is to get mutas. While the mutas are doing their job- THEN I get speedlings and banelings, expand again, infestor pit, melee/carapace upgrade and hive for crack. This ground army can almost deal with anything, if he's not using bio then I switch it to roach/hydra.
Expand once or twice more and start making corruptors and broodlords.
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On May 08 2010 05:02 Chill wrote:
Hydralisks do great against marauders wtf is going on in this thread?
/shrug i have no idea and i ahve been following it lol
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On May 08 2010 06:26 xnub wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2010 05:02 Chill wrote:
Hydralisks do great against marauders wtf is going on in this thread? /shrug i have no idea and i ahve been following it lol
then please tell me what is great against it.
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Bling bust isn't early aggression. It puts you fairly all in.
Well if you get prepared for it, but dont actually go through with it because he fortified his wall/blocked his choke, then it isnt very all in, its just early zergling speed, a baneling nest, and a bunch of lings.
If you still have 18-20 drones, and an expo halfway done, it shouldnt be considered all-in imo, but if it is, then whatever, Im just trying to find a way to make it work as an actual opening, and not some sort of cheese/all-in.
op is doing it wrong imho.
What I do in zvt is 15pool or hatch and then get up a few crawlers and a roach warren while using a few lings to scout. The moment I see him moving out with any early aggression. I just start spamming roaches.
But this is not my goal, my goal is to get mutas. While the mutas are doing their job- THEN I get speedlings and banelings, expand again, infestor pit, melee/carapace upgrade and hive for crack. This ground army can almost deal with anything, if he's not using bio then I switch it to roach/hydra.
Expand once or twice more and start making corruptors and broodlords.
That doesnt really help. If I wanted to ask what you do against terran, I would ask you for that.
Instead, I am trying to make something else work, and its really close, but not quite there yet, though it has potential, its fun, and it fits my playstyle.
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On May 08 2010 06:55 Vain wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2010 06:26 xnub wrote:On May 08 2010 05:02 Chill wrote:
Hydralisks do great against marauders wtf is going on in this thread? /shrug i have no idea and i ahve been following it lol then please tell me what is great against it.
We have / the post has allready
Speedlings/hydras/infestors/mutas all counter pure marauders
Bio ball of MMM
Speelings/banlings add on infestors in later game
Hydra/roachs add on infestors in later game
Muta/speedling or banling with good controll
hydra/speedlingz
Broodlords
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Hydras against stimmed mar with medivacs kind of suck but add in some lings to soak up the damage and you're good. I think it was the zotac8 cup on lost temple zpux against boys where boys tries to contain zpux at his nat and zpux breaks it with roaches hydras and lings. He did an excellent job of micro'ing everything. I started to make more lings to suck up the marauder fire after I saw that and it's working out well for me. Before I would try to make more roaches to soak damage. Then I tried more hydra and that didn't work. I read from someone on tl that lings were actually more cost effective than roaches as meat shields and I believe it.
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Marauders can't hit air?
Another counter would be infestor fungal growth + hydra/roach/ling
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EPT
