Here is a VOD (from the French powerhouse aAa) of a custom game between aAa.Kenzy and MouZ.Morrow (Morrow is probably one of the best Terran european player and Kenzy one of the best Zerg french player with Moman).
Two weeks ago, a nation clanwar took place between Sweden and France. France was wining 5-3 before Morrow arrives and pwned the 4 french Zerg in order to finish 5-7 for Sweden.
Following that, Kenzy trained with Morrow in order to get a counter to that mech strat.
Im a terran player so i may be wrong here. But what is wrong with dealing with it broodwar style. Use drops or nydess worm mass exspo and if there not enough thors kill them with mass muta, i know splash is a bitch but if u come in from multiple sides its cant be that bad
On May 09 2010 15:57 Spoof wrote: Slush successfully used burrowed roaches against a terran player pretty recently...
If a Terran can take his third with no retaliation, he's already won the game. Massing factory units is an economic blackhole on one base. I think this is where you are not taking control. The mech unit composition is so slow to respond to any type of change at this phase in the game, so the zerg player is dictating the pace. Any loss is a huge loss for the Terran at this point. If you vehemently oppose the roach strategy, maybe an infestor/ling army might work. Hellions are your main threat, and they die to 3 fungal growths as shown in the TLO vs CauthonLuck match. Even if the Terran player turtles up and pushes, you have two major advantages. 1) You can match or out-do his expansions 2)Fungal growth will stop that already immobile army from moving out at all.
Post again when you see an actual mech play, not marauder/marine/tanks.
On May 09 2010 16:15 Apo.Stou wrote: Ok guys,
Here is a VOD (from the French powerhouse aAa) of a custom game between aAa.Kenzy and MouZ.Morrow (Morrow is probably one of the best Terran european player and Kenzy one of the best Zerg french player with Moman).
Too many mistakes by t, no ravens either. Simply died to muta/bloodlords after losing his army trying to rush his push across the map.
@ spoof: the infestor ling worked for TLO becuase the hellions were simply grouped together. In my match, by the time the push came, there already was an incredible amount of hellions out, AND infestors die in 2 shots of a sieged tank, so all the T has to do is snipe them.
I'm having an INCREDIBLY hard time against this. I usually get my expansion up before they do, and early game I hit with a baneling bust and usually I'm able to kill 4-5 SCVs. Once the terran guy has like 3 tanks though... I can do nothing.
I just played a game where the terran player slowly pushed me back to my natural (in LT) and then built a ton of offensive turrets, sieged his tanks, and slowly turtled up. I tried using a few infested terrans to take the first few splash shots, and I had about 25 hyrdras and 20 roaches that literally died in 2 seconds to the tanks, even with the distraction dudes. I started building brood lords, but then he came in with about 10 vikings and I could do NOTHING.
I even build a nydus and tried some backdoors into his base, even just one nydus outside of his base around the tanks... but sieged tanks in his base killed the nydus every time before I could get anything in.
"Don't let him get to that point" seems like a lame answer. If the terran plays carefully enough, turtles, and slowly moves up, it seems like there's really not a lot I can do. Is there seriously NO answer to this? All ground units become useless vs tanks, and viking's range can snipe the broodlords sniping the tanks. If they have about 2 thors, all mutas become almost useless.
Also... is it just me, or do thors seem to do just fine against zerglings? I swear one thor still could take 14 zerglings ISOLATED WITH THE ATTACK SPEED UPGRADE? I thought that small units were supposed to counter them?
Uhg... every terran game is the same, if I don't win in 5 minutes via baneling bust I lose the game.
grr, this mech build is hard to beat - my 6th straight lost vs it. Anyone found a reliable way to beat it? might have to switch to 7 pooling soon and go for early win as after the banelings I'm screwed. Bring back SC1 queen please!
My advice is to have an army about 40 food larger than his.
Well, considering the roach nerf perhaps 80 more.
MASSSSSS roach is about your only chance vs tank/thor/hellion. Make sure they are 2/2 with speed upgrades, have some attacking and have others running ontop of the tanks to spread splash.
Burrowed roaches are awsome vs this. im 1200 plat and thats the only way im losing with a good sized mech army.
Also remember to get your creep out faaaar both for the sake of closing distance with the T army but also to denie him from building missile turrets.
Now people complainig about this and saying a good terran will get a raven. Bleh getting a raven will delay your push a lot since its a techlab, starport and 200 gas. Thats more than 3 tanks or 1½ thor worth of gas. Meanwhile he is getting that raven you will be taking eco advantage and spreading creep crazy much. Lategame just go broodlords+muta. Since you can change your units comp waaaaay faster than terran he will be dead before he can get enough vikings/thors. Also dont micro your mutas as if they were 1 unit.
Jesus Terrans should really learn to get 1/2 ravens or save up scans maybe even slow push BW TvP style. With the roaches ability they should be basically prepared for hold position lurkers everywhere on the map. Even with the latest patch I throw 12-15 roaches into my hydra/ling/infestor mix and research tunneling claws.So far it works every time like a charm... too much so. I'm sorry i was wandering where to post this.. it kiinda suits here..
I don't think you can do anything cute against mech. You really just have to open with roach/hydra, (or roach and quick mutas depending on how he's meching) and you need to spread as much creep around as possible and prevent a slow push with burrowed roaches/hydras, all the while taking extra expansions and teching to broodlords. That is the most consistent and reliable thing to do against mech. Unless someone can come up with something better. Hydras and 2 pop roaches will melt like butter, infestors will get sniped like nothing.
No tier two unit is going to penetrate his nat with tanks on the ridges, turrets everywhere, hellions in the front, bunkers there.
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS PURE THEORYCRAFTING AND I HAVE NEVER TRIED THIS MYSELF
Everyone's looking at roaches to burrow under the enemy and negate some of the tank range/draw splash to terran friendlies/soak damage. What if you took 5 or 6 full energy infestors and spammed infested terrans all over the place? It would possibly give you ~40 supply extra (if you're maxed 200/200 and spawn ~40 infested terrans from 5 infestors with 200 energy), and give you great positioning that the terran could really do nothing about. This is in contrast to roaches which take up supply and have crappy dps, require terrans to be ravenless and scanless to get into position. Infestors are pretty hard to use for neural parasite late game because they just get focussed down so easily and are outranged by tanks, and FG has little effect on tank/thor.
This is sort of a *meh* idea but its the only strategy I could think of that zerg could use that could beat a Terran 200 mech army without having to use 300-400 supply worth of units...
First of all a Terran mech army needs a lot of gas and is immobile and rather fragile till it hits critical size (something like ~8 tanks, ~20 hellions, ~2 thors, +viking & raven support).
Now I am going to assume that due to this the zerg should be able to out resource the terran by doing multiple fast expanding since the Terran attack will be slow in coming. (zerg would be using the typical roach muta with some spine crawlers at this point to harass the Terran, stall his expansion and hold off hellion harass also zerg would be upgrading air at this point)
Since the Terrans army is primarily ground (hellions, tanks) I believe zerg's best shot is to try and overpowering the Terran's air control (and no I don't mean mutas). I think the zerg may have success using mass corruptors, broodlords, and... queens.
Why? Well broodlords should be obvious since most of the damage they'll do will be the Terran's tanks killing his own units due to broodlings also thors aren't cost effective against them. So the Terran's only deffence against them is vikings which the corruptors will take care of just by out numbering them and corruptors' 2 armor and corruption skill on thors doesn't hurt either.
Lastly what are the queens for? Hasn't anyone realised they have the best cost to hp ratio of any unit in the game? Besides you have to do something with your spare minerals and zerglings are not an option against hellions. Furthermore queens can heal your expensive air units almost instantly.
Anyway thats my best idea its not great and relies largely on being able to out resource the Terran but it should work.
On May 08 2010 08:56 CheAse wrote: Try burrowing roaches and popping them up right around the terran army. Seems to work pretty well for my opponents.
Very effective, if you burrow walk the roaches right near his tanks, the tanks will end up friendly firing lots of his units as well.
If you dont have enough to research / make roaches, speedlings could possibly work. You really need to fight terrans (and in most matchups anyways) at multiple fronts. If he can safely hide the tanks behind his meat, then he'll win almost any battle singlehandedly. Part of your micro should be separating your army into multiple control groups and converge on your opponent - that way he cant hide his tanks.
Okay.. so Massive amounts of roaches on more bases was enough to stop the push before, but what now? i hit 200 supply so fast now with roaches, that i cant get nearly enough to soak up the splash, and i've been experimenting with ALL TYPES of builds including using infestors, baneling drops, broodlord tech, and ultra tech, and here is my outcomes:
Baneling Drops: By the time i get this, i invested so much into the (small) amounts of tech required (Playing SAFELY) that by the time the drop goes down, hes already pushing with 4-5 tanks, ~20 hellions, 2-3 thors+ and marauders.
Broodlord Tech: By the time my greater spire is finishing with 2base, the push is already killing my nat, or mid-way to my base (using safe play) Using non safe play: T's harassment usually scouts my lack of units, and destroys my base
Ultra Tech: Ultralisk dens up, ultralisks are building while hes pushing. Wont get more than 2-3 out, which will DROP to the hellions
So At this point, it looks like you pretty much have to end the game before he can safely expo once, or else he will rack in too much gas for the pushh.
I'm not totally sure about how to deal with it, but I think the trick is that you need to be aggressive in the midgame, before the Terran is able to really assemble the "money" composition to beat your army.
I don't think there's a "silver bullet" solution. Roach/muta might work best. Or I think asian zergs use like roach/hydra/baneling/muta or some other long composition.
Ive tried being aggresive, but i mean 1-2 thor near minearls + 2 turrets can shut down literally 20 mutas, which would DRAIN gas funds, and seeing as their AA range is so far, it'd be hard to pick much anything off in their base.
The best way to win is to get LUCKY with field position, and hope hes too bad to scan / get a raven out....
Maybe its the only way, until ultras are an easier tech and/or stronger
Roaches used to own mech hard. Now they don't. But they still do very well against it. The problem most people run into is they must find a way to get the terran to commit to a mech combo that doesn't counter roaches. So starting your build with things that throw the mech combo off is a good idea. Mutas is the best example. He will be less likely to add tanks or marauders to his combo if he's seeing you with muta tech. Instead he'll be heavy on thors and hellions easy pickings for roaches.
You have no intention of building a lot of mutas you just want him to think that. Get a few corruptors out for 20% bonus damage against thors and spam roaches. When you have extra gas start getting infestors and neural parasite. If he starts getting a lot of marauders add zerglings. The idea is to use your map control to out expand him while he's trying to find the right unit combo to push out. If he finds the right unit combo you're dead so you better scout and stay ahead of him.
Oh and don't run into sieged tanks ever! If he's being super careful slow pushing and keeping them sieged at all times then you better nydus him or he'll eventually reach your base and kill you.
Edit: Just a side note, I'm fairly sure that a very skilled terran should always beat an equally skilled zerg if the terran scouts well and understands the meta game. If you're a terran struggling against zergs take some time to learn zerg and you'll find it much easier to beat them once you understand them.
EPT
