Since the beta is all but over, and we are one week from launch, I thought I’d help everyone wipe their tears away and make the wait for the game a little less daunting! Enjoy!
Heart of the Swarm - a guide to the zerg race
“Bawwwww, these cuddly little animals are so cute =3”
Table of contents:
Introduction
The Swarm
Mechanics, the basics
Micromanagement
Macromanagement
General tips while playing
Closing thoughts
1. Introduction
Originally, I wanted to write a small article for Teamliquid.net about the zerg, commemorating the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. With the release of the game itself, there is sure to be a lot of new people floating towards the site. I wanted to create a thread that could be referred to as a beginner’s guide to playing zerg. During the course of the beta, I saw many little gems posted all around the site. Single posts, threads and discussions that helped me at the time. I wanted to create one place, that stored all that knowledge about the zerg race. Please don’t think about this guide, as a one person’s guide, think about it more as a collective of teamliquid’s knowledge about the race, assembled by one person =)
This guide assumes this is not your first RTS game, that you are already acquainted with the very basics of the game, that can be leant playing through the campaign itself and that you already know the zerg unit roster along with the buildings.
2. The Swarm
"I hope you're prepared for the next encounter. The zerg are coming. The zerg are nature in all her fury. Nature doesn't just adapt. Nature cheats, changes the rules, and slips out the back door with your wallet while you're still trying to figure out what the hell happened."
- Maren Ayers describes zerg evolution
The zerg swarm consists of a lot of different breeds of living creatures, each highly evolved to fill in a certain role in the collective. The units are generally fast, weak and cheap, but they make up for it in numbers. As such, you will need a lot of unrestricted space to overwhelm your opponent. Big open grassy plains or platforms are your friends. I’d advise to stay clear of chokes, ramps, craters and the like. Try to also keep in mind that you can burrow. Roaches, infestors and banelings profit from this trait extremely. It is not uncommon to set up living minefields, cast spells from underground, or to flank your opponent with roaches that you previously moved into position using their ability to move while burrowed.
The zerg are also a reactionary race. They must be flexible. You go into a game with a certain game plan in your head, but you must adapt to what your enemy is doing in the game. You cannot follow 100% through with the plan you had in mind before the match started. You must observe what the opponent is doing and pick a response to that accordingly.
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”
3. Mechanics, the basics
The first mechanic we’ll go over is expanding creep. Creep is very important for zerg players. It gives our ground units (except for drones and broodlings) an extra movement speed boost. It’s also one of the mechanics completely reserved for zerg players. Expanding creep will allow for faster transportation between bases. Also, without a creep generator somewhere near, zerg buildings just die by themselves.
!!! I cannot stress enough how important the skill of spreading creep efficiently is becoming. People are arguing if this mechanic is really a bonus or a handicap. Whichever may be the case, one thing is certain – zerg units benefit from being on creep. Zerg users be it in bronze or diamond should work on expanding their creep from the very early stages of the game, in a fast and efficient manner all throughout the game.
There are 2 ways to expand creep in the game, aside from building a hatchery:
1) Using creep tumors. The queen has a special ability that allows her for 25 energy to place a creep tumor on creep, that will expand it further. During the early phases of the game you’ll probably be busy injecting larvae into your hatcheries, but later on, as there is more and more stuff to do you’ll inevitably accumulate more and more energy on your queen. Creep tumors are a great way to speed up your army and burn that excess of energy.
Creating creep highways for the future generations. After all, infrastructure is very important for any empire.
2) The second method becomes available when you advance to tier 2. Once a Lair is finished morphing, your overlords will be able to generate creep. This is a great mechanic for us Zs. It gives the overlords more depth and usefulness. It also allows us to hide our tech! Place an overlord far away from your hatchery, start generating creep there once you can and send a drone to morph into a spire there! I probably should mention also, that spreading creep on unused expansions could halt your opponent’s expanding until he gets rid of your overlord there.
Vomiting has never been so useful before!
The next mechanic I want to tell you about is scouting. Scouting is a very important part of any RTS game. Gathering information on your enemy is vital to your success. As zerg although we don’t have permanently cloaked observers or comsat scans to help us scout we have our own array of scouting methods.
1) Our basic assault unit is fast, agile and cheap. Our beloved zergling! With this unit which can run circles around zealots and marines. Our scouting early game is made very easy. Put 1 or 2 of these at your enemy’s choke and see them move out. Run around the map with them, check for hidden expansions. Take over Xel’Naga watch towers. Their use is not only limited to early game, later you can always send a few lings into your enemy’s army and based on the number of units you see, decide to attack or fall back.
He’s doing his part, are you?
2) Overlords are useful for scouting. Overlords are incredible, cheap scouts. They can be sent to your opponent’s base to scout him, see him moving out, or to just watch over the map’s places of interest such as high yield mineral expansions or common attack routes.
I spy with my little eye…
3) Changelings. The overseer spawns a creepy looking blob that can move around. When it comes into contact with your opponent’s army, it quickly changes shape into that of a marine, zergling or zealot. He cannot attack, but he also will not be attacked automatically by the enemy. Your opponent will have to issue the order to fire on it himself.
Lately, this topic has been very controversial. In high level play scouting is all the more important, but also a lot harder to do, especially for us zergs. The common overlord scouting routs have been discovered, and terrans often send out 1-2 marines to take down overlords which is quite the setback this early on in the game. The maps aren’t also very overlord friendly, being designed without safe routes for our overlords to take or ledges to sit upon. This puts additional pressure on zerg users, making them often have to outright guess the enemy’s army composition during a game. Later on, with vikings patrolling the skies, and blinkstalers, scouting with overlords may become very costly if your opponent will be persistent with denying it.
4. Micromanagement
“Micro is the ability to control your units individually, in order to make up for pathing or otherwise imperfect AI. For example, controlling only two marines to kill a lurker, or being able to kill multiple scourges with mutalisks is considered "micro". The general theory of micro is to keep as many units alive as possible. For example it is better to have four half-dead dragoons after a battle, rather than to have two dragoons at full health and two dead ones.” - a direct quote from Liquipedia. I love you guys <3
While it is true that the AI has certainly improved since StarCraft: Brood War, the AI we have in Starcraft 2 is far from perfect. There is always something to improve upon, there is always something to get better with.
That’s all dandy for both protoss and terran players, whose units have abilities. The zerg don’t really rely on unit abilities. The only unit you’ll be using abilities with yourself will probably be the infestor. To a much lesser extent roaches with burrow, corruptors with corruption and overseers with contaminate or spawn changeling.
While the other races have active abilities that help their units, the zerg make up for it with flanking, surrounding, backstabbing. Here’s a short definition of these terms, taken of course, from Liquipedia!
Surrounding
The technique is the positioning of melee units around and amongst the opponent's units. This is essential when using zerglings against marines or stalkers. The two main effects are: The units deal more damage. By surrounding the enemy, the player has more surface area from which to attack. This increases the damage dealt by the zerglings, for example, because more of them are in contact with the enemy. It spreads the enemy's ranged damage more evenly over the zerg player's units. This keeps the zerg player's units alive longer and therefore allows them to do more damage.
Flanking
Flanking involves positioning part of the zerg player's army away from his or her main force. When the player engages with his or her main force, the player uses the flank force to attack from a different angle. Coupled with an element of surprise it can maximize the effectiveness of the player's units in the battle. Flanking has several effects: It prevents the enemy from retreating. This is particularly important against terran players because they can keep backing away, greatly reducing the damage they take from lurkers and making a zergling surround difficult. It can create a surrounding effect. It can catch valuable and fragile units from the rear while the bulk of the army that protects them lies in front. An example of this is catching siege tanks or high templar off guard. All your units attack (instead of them waiting for the front units to die, so they can be in range to shoot). Helps avoiding storms on hydras/lings due to better spread.
Backstabbing
Backstabbing involves waiting for the main enemy army to move out of the main base, then quickly attacking the enemy's undefended or lightly defended main base. Zerg is the most effective at backstabbing because of the high speed and damage per second of its units, particularly the zergling. Once the zerg player's units enter the opponent's base, he or she must quickly determine how to do the most damage before the main army returns. The best targets are usually the workers, which are essential to the enemy's economy, or the tech buildings, which are essential to the strategy of the enemy.
The majority of the zerg ground arsenal is limited to melee combat with the hydra being the only real exception having decent range. Remember to create effective arcs with your ranged units, so that you’ll maximize the number of units attacking. This is especially important for hydralisks and roaches.
With the advent of better pathing, the units don’t bump into each other so much. They use every spare tile of the map they find to move from one place to the other. This phenomenon and the unlimited unit selection, created the “ball effect”. Units bunch up every closely together. This has the potential to kill absurd amount of units with AoE damage.
To avert this catastrophe from every taking place within your own ranks there is one effective solution. Read on about it below!
The ball effect in action.
This is where I’d like to talk about hotkeys. Hotkeys allow you to make control groups of units to better control them. Instead of just selecting every unit you have and attack-moving everything into your enemy, you can create arcs and surrounding the opponent more effectively and faster than the computer.
Hotkeying units and creating squads, will greatly improve the performance of your army. The fragile spell casters won’t suicide into your opponent’s army, the slower tank units, will be permitted to enter combat first to soak up the damage, the fragile yet powerful glass cannons will stay behind your tanks and deal the damage they’re supposed to.
This reduces the ball effect, and lets you have more direct control over what is happening over the battlefield.
Now the number of hotkeys you’ll have for your units is entirely up to you, but anything over five hotkeys would be going overboard. More on this in the section below!
5. Macromanagement
Macro is your ability to produce units, and keep all of your production buildings busy. Generally, the player with the better macro will have the larger army. The other element of macro is your ability to expand at the appropriate times to keep your production of units flowing. A good macro player is able to keep increasing his or her production capability while having the resources to support it. -Yes, even more Liquipedia
Now, this section will probably be the most important section in this whole guide. The zerg race is built on macromanagement. Managing larvae, queen injections, drone count knowing when to build drones and when to build units and the like, is the absolute ESSENCE of this race. When you lose, you most likely lost because you had bad macro.
Larvae management is essential to your understanding of the zerg race. One hatchery generates 1 larvae every 20 seconds up to a total of 3 larvae. After that it’s the queen’s injections that bring the total of larvae higher than 3. The queen has the ability to inject larvae into a hatchery for 25 energy. After 40 seconds, 4 additional larvae spawn at your hatchery. There is no recharge time for this ability, but it takes roughly 40 seconds for a queen to gain back 25 energy for another injection. Ideally you’d want no more than 7 larvae swarming around your hatchery at any given time (3 natural, and 4 artificial provided by queens). Any more is a waste. But that level of management is unreachable for most of us. Even the pros would be hard pressed to keep this up all game long.
More vomiting goodness.
I feel like Day[9]’s quote from one of the tournaments he commentated on fits well with this section =)
*A queen is running back from the natural to the main of a player’s base, to inject larvae into the hatchery there* “Ohh yeah, after running a little I vomit too, just like the Queen” – Day[9], we all love you.
Now that you know a little about larvae let’s move on to using them. A trademark of a good player is to use up all his resources, keep his production lines busy, and expanding when the time is right as said in the Liquipedia quote. For the zerg additionally to keeping your resources low, you must also realize that the larvae are as much as a resource as supply, gas and minerals. If you can’t use up all your larvae that you have at your hatcheries, consider putting down a creep tumor instead. While our terran and protoss counterparts have separate facilities for training workers and assault units, we share the same resource between these two units: the larvae. Every unit you make, comes from a larvae. Drones, overlords, assault units. You must learn to juggle around all 3 of those simultaneously. This is one of the harder aspect of playing zerg, knowing when to build what.
This is bad macro.
“When is the right time to build drones?” I was once asked. I replied; “When you know your opponent can’t punish you for doing so”
If you see 1 gate core or a 1 rax CC, it’s safe to whore drones. If you see 4 gates and no other tech, or 2 facts 1 with tech lab and the other with a reactor, you’d best be building roaches or lings.
Try not to get supply blocked. Make overlords in advance. If you’re 2-4 food away from your limit, make overlords next.
Now you’re probably thinking “well OK, I get it, but how to macro?” Well, remember when I said not to go overboard with hotkeying units? That’s because the other hotkeys will be your macro hotkeys. Hatcheries, queens. How you do it is up to you. I’ll just provide you with the 3 techniques that are generally the most popular due to their ease of use and speed (execution is everything!). Remember you can mix and match or develop your own style. How you play is entirely up to you:
Technique 1: The simple way Hotkeys 1-2-3(-4) = Units. 4 (or 5) All of your hatcheries. Next hotkey is: main hatchery + main queen Next one after that is: nat(short for natural) hatchery + nat queen Next: 3rd hatch + 3rd queen. …
What you do is press 5(or 6) two times, press v and target hatch. 66v+target hatch 77v+target hatch. You press 4 (or 5) s(for select larvae) and then d(drones) z(zerglings) t(mutalisks) etc. In conclusion you have 55v*click*66v*click*77v*click*(…)4sdzttttttttttddzzzzzzdhhhhh etc.
Technique 2: Backspace + Shift 1. Put all queens on 1 hotkey. 2. Select queens. 3. Press Spawn Larvae hotkey (v) 4. Press Backspace once to center on a hatch. 5. Hold Right Side Shift. DO NOT RELEASE. 6. Spam left mouse click + Backspace 7. All hatches are injected.
Watch this video:
Technique 3: Minimap injection
1. Put all queens on 1 hotkey. 2. Select that hotkey (and all your queens with it) 3. Press v once and hold left shift. 4. Target your hatcheries on the minimap and left click. DO NOT LET GO OF SHIFT. 5. All hatcheries injected. 6a. Macro out of your hatches either by putting them all on 1 hotkey and selecting them and doing all the sddddddddddddddddddzzzzzzzzzzzzhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhtttttttttt 6b. Macro out of your hatches by putting each separate hatch on 1 unique hotkey doing 5sddd6szzz7sttt8sddd9sddd0shhh (old school StarCraft 1 style)
I’d also like to point out you DON’T have to press a shortcut three times. You can just keep it pressed down if you want to build only one unit type.
Remember to maynard (transfer workers from one base to another, usually from a more saturated base to a less saturated base) workers, especially to a gold expansion. If not properly scouted, it will give you an immense economical advantage. This will spread your workers more evenly between the bases, and subsequently between the number of minerals you’re mining from. This will permit you to: 1) Bolster your income. Remember that income is based on the number of mineral patches you’re mining from, and not directly from the number of workers you have. It’s better to mine 15 patches with 50 workers, than 8 patches with 70 workers. 2) It allows you to spread your workers more evenly, keeping your original mineral patches “alive” longer, and thus spread the income more evenly throughout time.
Maynarding to a gold expansion. A potential game ender right there.
Now, the last point in this section will be: “When is the right time to expand?” The right time to expand would be either after winning a big battle to further secure the lead you have over your opponent, or, when after macroing, starting your upgrades, teching, you are still left in an excess of cash.
Keep in mind there are exceptions. Don’t expand when you’re being contained. Break the contain first, unless it’s to an island.
6. General tips while playing
In this section I’d like to provide you with some general tips to playing zerg online.
Earlygame
You start out the match with 6 drones, 1 overlord, 50 minerals and 1 hatchery. Select all 6 of your workers, and send them to mine minerals(preferably the ones closest to your hatchery). While they are on their way, quickly select half of them (that is, 3) and send them to another mineral that is further away. This is called worker splitting. It allows your workers to split between the minerals more efficiently, and start gathering minerals faster. After that, select your hatchery and start making drones.
!!! I strongly advise you to learn all the shortcuts for your race by heart. If you don’t know one, scroll over it with your mouse, and then press the shortcut on your keyboard instead of clicking the mouse. This will have a huge effect on your execution and will greatly affect your gameplay speed making you be able to do things a lot more faster.
A worker split at the start of a game.
Now that we have the workers out of our way, we can concentrate on the overlord. He is your scout for this early part of the game. Send him to the nearest other starting location to you.
If it’s a two player map it’s not much of an issue, but if it’s a four player map, it becomes difficult. The rule of thumb is to scout with your overlord the nearest other starting position to you. If the enemy is not there, send out a drone at a later time. Be aware that your enemy can shoot it down with marines or a queen if he has any of those. Scouting protoss is a lot less daunting since they require a cybernetics core to produce units that can shoot air targets.
Like this, see? The red lines indicate where to send your overlord.
!!! I would strongly advise you to start hotkeying your buildings and units right now and doing that throughout the course of the game. As with the shortcuts, these will have a huge impact on your execution. It’s always good to start acquiring good reflexes from an early point.
It’s also worth to mention that you shouldn’t leave your first overlord at that base if he found nothing. You should send him in between the other two spawning locations over space or water, to later have an easy access to a scout. Be careful not to lose your first few overlords! On some maps like Steppes of War, or Blistering Sands, it’s safer to send your overlord to their natural instead of their main and wait for the right time to suicide that overlord in.
If you don’t find your opponent, don’t leave your overlord hanging in that other base. Send him across the map, in between the other two bases.
With all that done, we can move on to the next part of the game ^^
The Overlord timings you have at your disposal While all that jazz is happening under your divine guidance, you should be reaching the point where you’re ready to spawn your second overlord.
Although, I think the 9/10 overlord is vastly superior to the other two timings, to remain as much unbiased as possible, I will provide you with all the three popular overlord timings.
The 9/10 overlord Make drones until you have 9/10 supply After acquiring 100 minerals, make your overlord After mining another 50 minerals make the last drone, making your supply 10/10.
! When this tenth drone is hatched, I usually send it to scout the other spawning locations (regardless if it’s a four player map or not). Such an early scout can harass your opponent, and possibly scout an early aggression build giving you time to prepare.
When your overlord hatches, you should have a little over 100 minerals and 2 larvae ready to make anything you want. A few seconds later you’ll have another 50 minerals, and a 3rd larvae will be available.
The extractor trick Make drones until you have 10/10 worth of supply. After mining another 50 minerals, send one of your drones to morph into an extractor. This will bring your food count down to 9/10 once again. Queue up another drone bring the supply to 10/10. Now, cancel your extractor, salvaging the drone and some money, brining your supply total to 11/10. Mine 100 minerals and queue up an overlord.
The double extractor trick Make drones until you have 10/10 worth of supply. After mining another 75 minerals, send 2 of your drones to morph into extractors. This will bring your food count down to 8/10 once again. Queue up 2 drones once you have 100 minerals, bring the supply back up to 10/10. Now, cancel your extractors, salvaging the drones and some money, brining your supply total to 12/10. Mine 100 minerals and queue up an overlord.
At this point, you’ll probably be done putting down the foundations for your build order =), but more on those later! Let’s continue with the general tips for all the three match ups.
!!!It should also be noted, that instead of injecting a second time, you could very well put up a creep tumor and start expanding your creep right away. This early in the game, you’ll be hard pressed to use those 8 additional larvae from the injections making them a lot less effective. A creep tumor this early in the game can go a long way. You could(and probably should) also queue up a 2nd queen from your main hatch to already have a 2nd one out when your natural comes up. This second queen will also be a lot of help versus early aggression. It is not uncommon to have 3-4-5 queens on 2 bases(2-3 hatches). They are your sole anti-air this early on in the game, and can aid in defending the base.
Midgame
Now, since we’ve set up our early game, and have some units on the field, let’s start using them. As your empire grows, so does your number of overlords. As you take your natural, or any other expansions for that matter, always build a queen for that hatchery. Start placing your overlords between your main and your nat, keeping a fair distance between them, and later between your nat and your future third , this will be extremely useful once you get to tier 2. I image your ground units probably get pretty bored sitting at your rally point, looking at the creep expand. We need to organize them some activities! Preferably something that involves running, so they won’t grow fat ; )
You should keep a part of your units moving. Destroying destructible rocks, scouting expands et cetra. If you have mutalisks they should always be on the move. Never sitting at home doing nothing.
Zerglings engaging in extracurricular recreational activities.
! I’m including this, because a lot of people asked me this question, the time to add your second gas (and possibly a 3rd at your natural, depending on your economy) would be when you’re teching to Lair or around 35-ish supply.
See that green circle? That’s where your mutalisks should be trying to poke in relentlessly.
This is what the map should look like at this point in the game.
Remember when I talked about expanding creep? Well, it’s time to put the theory into practice =) By midgame you should have a few overlords spread out. Overlord speed is an essential upgrade that should be upgraded as soon as you get Lair. If you followed my instructions you preemptively spaced out your overlords between your main and nat, and your nat and your future 3rd. Now just go to every one of them and hit “g” every time, to start generating creep. Keep in mind that you can also place creep tumors to further expand creep, which you should have been doing from the very start of the game already.
The midgame, will also probably determine the tech you will put down and use for the remainder of your game. I very strongly suggest mutalisks to be your opening tech versus every race, unless it’s a protoss with stargates. It should also be the time you start upgrading. Once overlord speed is done, send out all your unused or extra overlords to scout around the map and spread creep. The places where you should put your overlords are: island expansions, unused expansions, around your enemy, along the major attack routes, et cetra.
! A good time to put down evolution chambers is once Lair is finished, or once you hit 50 supply. Your economy should be stable and be able to support it.
Your 3rd and the general direction in which you’ll be expanding should be chosen wisely. If you decide to put it close to you, it will be much easier to defend. Normally, it is not advised to expand towards your enemy.
Another popular thing to do nowadays is, putting your third hatch in your main instead of a third expand. This is often done if you spawn vertically to your opponent and will generally have a hard time getting a third expansion up. Provided you have a stable economy, a third hatch could help you drone up even more, or provide extra larvae to morph into units if you have any excess minerals.
Lategame
By this time, you should be on 3-5 bases, have a booming economy and a large army to defend everything. The lategame really isn’t that much different from the midgame. You try to take more expansions, keep up with the upgrades, keep spreading creep, keep injecting your hatcheries, macroing, and trying to defeat your opponent. In lategame, your most powerful tech becomes available. Corruptors can morph into Broodlords, Infestors can acquire the neural parasite spell which is essentially a channeled mind control spell for a fixed duration of time and you’ll be able to train Ultralisks along with upgrading some vital upgrades for your other units such as Adrenal Glands for zerglings.
! I’d like to say here that zerg usually take their expansion for the extra vespene gaysers they provide and to a lesser extent, the mineral patches. The zerg have many great units, that require a lot of gas compared to those of the other races. That’s why when you’ll be expanding the 1st thing you’ll want to do in a new base (starting from your 3rd) is start using your extractors.
This is what the map should look like ideally. Look at those creep tumors
! When you put down an expansion, don’t think that you’re automatically ahead. The expansion needs time to pay back for itself with mining time. You start profiting from your expansions only when they’ve payed for themselves and the mining time lost transferring the drones. This applies to your opponents as well. When you see them expanding, don’t panic, don’t do anything rash.
Other tips for zerg:
Generally, cross spawn positions on maps like Lost Temple or Metapolis favor you. They allow you to expand in a safe manner, in a crescent like form away from your opponent.
A longer “rush” distance between your main and your enemy’s, generally favors you in most cases. It allows you to see him moving out and gives you time to train more troops.
Maps with a lot of high ground terrain and lots of chokes, work to your disadvantage. An example of such a map would be Kulas Rivine.
Maps with open middle and generally few chokes and cliffs, favor you.
Maps where your natural is far away, open from a lot of sides, and generally hard to defend is a bad map for zerg. An example would be Desert Oasis.
Maps where the 3rd and 4th are far away and wide open, generally are also bad for you.
Know which upgrade corresponds to which unit: zerglings and banelings both profit from the carapace upgrade and melee attack upgrade, while both hydralisks and roaches profit from the ranged attack upgrade and carapace!
Build Orders
The build orders branch into many variations of the basic 3 overlord timings, each having a goal of it’s own, providing either an economic advantage or safety.
There is no rule saying you can’t use this or that build order in a certain match up, but the build orders themselves are tailored to provide you with the best opening possible taking into consideration your opponent’s possibilities. As the zerg, the terran and the protoss are fundamentally different races all across the board in StarCraft, each build is unique, developed to suit each of these opponents =)
In this last section of this guide I would like to talk a little about the currently most common unit mixes for each race. Here you’ll find a description of the typical armies you will meet while laddering and what the pros use to counter them.
ZvP
The most common openings for protoss are:
4-gate. A very good 1-base opening that works wonders on natural open maps like Xel’Naga Caverns or metapolis where you need a lot of spines to defend. The usual follow up is taking the natural.
2-gate pressure. This build usually aims at killing your natural as it goes up, since zealots excel at fighting lings. If he chronoboosts his gateways, you might find yourself quickly outnumbered and overwhelmed (and dead sometimes).
Fast Expand. On maps like Lost temple, Scrap Station, Metapolis or Shakuras plateau, the protoss can put down a wall with cannons in the back giving him time to set up a very early expansion.
Now for the army composition:
Gateway units + mass Colossi.
Gateway units + robo units (a mix between Colossi and Immortals)
Gateway units + stargate units (phoenixes and void rays), this is becoming more and more rare, and more of a counter to mutalisk builds more than a desired unit composition. Usually into robo, but sometimes templars.
In the early game, zerglings should be sufficient defense if you want to save on gas, if however the protoss chooses to be very aggressive with many zealots I'd suggest putting down a roach warren. In midgame there is a shift from a small number of ranged units that the toss can produce, to a primarily ranged gateway army composed mostly of stalkers and sentries with zealots now acting only as meatshields, and not the damage dealers. That’s why in midgame you should think about transitioning into a well mixed hydra/roach army (but I’d advise to open with mutalisks either way unless it’s versus phoenixes). This army is very flexible, because large amounts of hydras can take on large amounts of gateway units, while the roaches tank and absorb damage for the fragile hydras. You might also want to add corruptors if you see colossi, but be careful not to go overboard with them. Remember that once the colossi are dead, the corruptors become dead weight.
Against FE you have 3 choices as of 1.1.2 1) Either you go roaches to pressure his wall and make him build units instead of probes 2) Or you double expand yourself to not lose the economic advantage 3) You can also do a risky spine crawler push if you’re in vertical positions.
Picture stolen from some teamliquid thread xP
! Also, try to keep up with the Ps upgrades. If zerglings and zealots are on equal upgrades, it takes 3 hits from a zealot to kill a zergling. If however, the zealots have more attack upgrades than the zerglings have carapace upgrades, that number of hits goes down to 2. Beware of the +1 attack timing pushes, your zerglings will melt.
Before, the infestors were also a nice counter to Colossi, with their neural parasite with infinite duration, but now the duration is only 12 seconds so, I’d advise you to favor corruptors in this match up versus colossi. But keep in mind infestors can be worth getting because they have fungal growth which is an incredible spell to use on bunched units in any situation.
It’s not uncommon to find high templars mixed into the fray late game, so when that happens, be prepared to mix in bigger roach numbers(or ultraslisks for that matter) into your army composition. Speeding up your army with creep is also very important in this situation.
A very standard protoss lategame army is composed of a high number of stalkers and a decent amount of colossi. Ultralisks deal with this army composition superbly. If you already have corruptors on the field, you can aim for Broodlords, which aren’t a bad choice either. Just make sure to keep them with your main army to protect them.
Stargate units are an entirely different enemy. While you still get hydras to counter them, phoenixes can be very annoying especially when you have a low number of hydras. They will fly in in groups of 5-6, lift up your queen, drones and even hydras that spawned if you don’t have a large enough group of them, kill them and run away before the rest of your hydralisks make it back in time to defend. If you survive these few initial attacks without taking a too huge a hit to your economy, you probably wont have to worry about them again. If he is persistent with his phoenixes, put down a few spore crawlers around your resource lines, and get corruptors. Mutalisks are not a good unit to get against phoenixes since they are lightly armoured and phoenixes have the moving shot.
Void rays, especially those chronoboosted, can arrive in your base extremely fast. It is very important to scout these. For the initial 1 or 2 void rays that come, you should have 2-3 queens to fend them off until hydralisks or mutalisks come into play. Make use of the queens transfusion spell to keep them alive for as long as possible. This might become less and less common since patch 1.1.2 nerfed void rays pretty bad.
ZvT
The terran has really a multitude of possible openings he can do against a zerg opponent ranging from very fast reapers marine/hellion pushes, passing through banshees and ending in thorship.
The most important part of this match up is scouting. You have to know if he’s doing some kind of 3 barracks aggression or if he’ll be opening up with a factory. While the odds are seemingly stacked against you, you do possess some advantages over the terran. Your forces are quicker, and more agile than his, meaning flanks are possible and almost a necessity, and your forces can be easily transported from one place to another via the nydus network. Researching drops and loading overlords with banelings should prove to be effective as well. Ultimately, you can try to just out muscle him, using your superior economy and the inherent zerg ability to expand easily.
The most common openings are:
1 base reactor hellions. After patch 1.1.2 (and even a little before) this opening has been dominating the match up. Hellions, hellions, hellions. Normal reactor hellions, blue-flame hellions, medivac drop in main hellions. Take your pick. This is currently without a doubt the standard.
Hellions into banshee. This build is as old as the game itself. Both units exploit the zerg’s weaknesses.
2/3 rax mnm push. An aggressive build with a flexible army. Can be easy or hard to stop depending if you have banelings or not.
1 rax(+bunker) expand
The follow ups:
Expand into dropship harras and macroing up. Again, the most standard thing in the world. Using the terran’s natural ability to turtle up and defend, coupled with the great synergy bioballs/medivacs share, this build is very good. It aims to out macro the zerg while denying greedy play and being overall annoying and efficient with the units you have. Plays well to terran’s strengths and to zerg’s weaknesses.
1-base big push. Opening transitions into 5-6 raxes(or 4 raxes and 1-2 factories) pumping units for 1 big push (sometimes, while taking an expand themselves). Can catch zerg off guard with the timing, and punish greedy zergs that skimped on units.
If it was 1 rax expand, he'll make a push before taking a 3rd. Terran should be comfortable on 2 bases for quite a long time. Transitions include mass raxes-ground-push, mass raxes-dropship harrass, more mass bio with tank support and banshees or vikings.
Depending on his opening, you have to get zerglings or roaches. If he goes bio ( many barracks) I’d prefer lings/bling(/roach), later on infestors. If he goes mech (factory and starport) units I’d personally try my chances with roaches and later on transition into roach/mutalisk/infestor. If he goes bio mech (a mix between the two) you would probably be better off with roach/bane with a fair amount of lings or mutalisks.
!!!Here is where I would like to mention the magic box, and subsequently the fall from grace of the mech builds in this particular match up. EG.IdrA showed us at the 2010 IEM Cologne that, mutalisks ARE in fact, the counter to terran mech.
The image that shook the very foundations of beta ZvT.
With the mutalisks overcoming their natural enemy – the thor, the ZvT match up has been changed forever.
Keep in mind your ultimate unit goal – Ultralisks. They do extremely well against both bio balls (tanking for banelings) and versus mech (dealing the damage). Coupled with infestors and fungal growth, the are a very good unit choice.
If you see a factory, you should immediately think “hellion harass”. These units specialize in killing lightly armored units such as zerglings, drones or hydralisks. To prevent hellion harass, keep your speedlings on creep, put up spine crawlers at your natural (1 or 2 will do fine, don’t go overboard), or switch tech to roaches(depending on your control and whether you want to save gas or not) . Four, is the magic number of hellions he needs, to 1 shot drones. This is when they become really dangerous to your economy and your zerglings. Deal with them quickly, try not to lose too many drones. You should also, block your ramp with a few zerglings or both queens as to not allow the hellions access to your main’s drones.
You should also make a 3rd Queen to counter any banshees that he might make after the initial hellion harass. Try to fight 1 banshee with 2 queens, or 2 banshees with 3 queens etc. like versus the void rays, use transfusion to your advantage until you get mutalisks or hydralisks. Keep in mind that they can cloak, so if you see banshees, get an overseer ASAP or even 2 for your bases.
Lategame, you’ll need to pull out the heaviest artillery you have: The broodlords or the ultralisks. Only these behemoths were shown to effectively mount a resistance against those dreadful balls of death. Both are excellent units that can supplement your forces. Keep in mind that ultralisk would probably be a better choice, because of how fast the terran can get a high number of vikings. ! Unfortunately, the terrans have their vikings. These, with their, 9 range in fighter mode, can easily snipe your broodlords from afar. It is advised to keep corruptors, mutalisks or infestors near broodlords to help fend off vikings.
The number of banelings you have should be proportional to the amount of marines he has. If he’s going marine heavy, you go baneling heavy. If he goes marauder heavy, you go ling/muta heavy.
Of course, there are players like Dimaga, that have very good results with pure lings early/mid game. You should find your own style and play with what you are comfortable with.
!! Against bioballs, infestors are a must at some point. Fungal growth will help you immensively against stim making your banelings connect.
! I cannot stress enough how important upgrades are in this match up. The terran will absolutely steamroll you if you fall behind on upgrades. Carapace and melee or ranged attack upgrades are vital to your success.
That about wraps up the ZvT section. I’sure in time, more options will become available and more build orders will be tailored for this particular match up.
ZvZ
And finally, here we are, the mirror match up. =) This is probably the most chaotic, the most APM demanding, the most mechanically difficult, match up for any zerg player. But there is also 1 good thing about this match up: There are no imbalances that your enemy can exploit ^_~
First thing first: The build orders are a sort of Russian roulette. Place your pool too early and be behind economically. Place your pool too late, and you’ll find yourself with your opponent’s zerglings tearing apart your drones.
The openings range from 8 pool, passing through overpool and 10pools to the very late 14 pool. Expands are generally accepted too, but be prepared to be on the defensive until you gain the economical advantage over your opponent.
The weapons of choice in this match up are: zerglings, banelings and mutalisks. And to a lesser extent: roaches, hydralisks, corruptors and infestors.
Well, the most common openings are:
12 pool speed
13 pool 15 hatch,
14 pool speed
Some form of fast roaches
You should also take note that early ZvZ revolves around zergling wars. Ling speed is crucial in these encounters. The one who won’t get speed, is at a massive disadvantage if caught in the open field. Zerglings with speed can run circles around those without it. If you choose to opt for roaches or 1 base play, any reason really to skip speed, here’s how to defend your ramp:
How to defend your ramp until speed kicks in or you get your tech out.
Notice the arc at the top. In zergling wars positioning is very important. The person who has a bigger arc with his zerglings wins. To quote Chill’s words here: “When you have zergling speed and an arc advantage over your opponent’s zerglings, they kill more enemy units than it is mathematically possible.”
The next step in ZvZ are banelings. When just minutes before zerglings were at each others’ throats, now they run away and cower in fear. The game shifts from all out zergling wars, to sniping banelings, minimizing the damage done to your lings and drones, and using your own banelings to maximize their effectiveness.
This is precisely why zerglings cower in fear.
Always try to kill a baneling with one zergling. Two zerglings for a baneling is also a good bargain. Three zerglings is fair, while any more above that, is a loss for you. Likewise, always try to kill as many zerglings with your baneling as you can. As you can see, this quickly turns into a mechanics and control war. Whoever has better control usually comes out on top, and wins the game right there.
! Don’t be afraid to try ling/roach or bling/roach once in a while. It can wield some very unexpected results. Also, an early evo chamber for +1 upgrade of your choice can tip the scales in your favor. Hint: +1 ranged attack, makes roaches 2-shot lings.
If however, both players didn’t outright kill each other with these units, the most common follow up are mutalisks.
! As above, don’t be afraid to try infestor/hydra/bling or any other unit mix for that matter. Hydras aren’t as expensive as mutalisks, so in time you might be able to spare some resources for infestors. Infestors absolutely demolish zerglings, banelings and mutalisks with their fungal growth. Just make sure your opponent’s banelings don’t get to your hydras.
A potentially very threatening army in ZvZ.
Morphing 1 overlord into an overseer in your base will probably be a good investment (like in every other match up). That way, burrowed roaches won’t surprise you. Roaches, hydralisks, infestors and corruptors are much more rare, but they can also be effective units when used correctly.
In this last paragraph in this section, I’d like to talk about the importance of drones. Since this is a mirror match up, you have everything at your disposal that your opponent does. Do you know what’s the difference between a 12 pool and a 13 pool? 1 extra drone. This advantage, especially from the early stages of the game, can become a staggering advantage later on. Suddenly 10 minutes later, provided you go head to head in everything else, one player has 500 more minerals than the other! As you can see the 1 extra drone had a huge snowball effect on a player’s economy. Do you know what’s the difference between a 10 pool and a 14 pool? 10 dead drones for the 14-pooler. Being too greedy, can result in very bad backlash.
What I’m trying to say here is, try to make that one extra drone every now and again. It will repay for itself the longer the game goes.
ZvX
Playing zerg versus random, is like playing any of the other match ups, since the enemy can only be a zerg, a protoss, or a terran. =)
Play safe, don’t do anything stupid like 3 hatch before pool. If you feel really discomforted, scout earlier than you would normally. Have a clear mind, and play with a leveled head!
Cheese builds and All-Ins
There were some excellent threads and posts on teamliquid defining cheese. It is an integral and invaluable part of this game’s and it’s predecessor’s experience. Without the possibility for these types of builds the game would have much less depth, be more stale, and people would quickly grow tired of doing the exact same builds over and over and over… It adds excitement and a lot of fun to the game.
Here’s a quote from Zatic: “In this topic I will try to provide general definitions to what “cheese” and “all-in” strategies are.
Both terms are regularly used on this forum, and most of the time are being misused.
“Cheese” is probably the worst of the two in terms of how people use it. You see people referring to any kind of rush as cheese. Then you see people complaining fast tech is cheese. You see people just crying cheese because they lost against a strategy they haven’t seen before. All-in is misused often enough as well. People think it’s the same as cheese. Or they call simply aggressive styles or timing attacks “allin”. So, let’s have a look at my own definitions:
Cheese
A strategy that relies overwhelmingly or entirely on secrecy. If scouted, the strategy fails and puts the executing player at a severe disadvantage, or right out costs him the game.
All-In
An aggressive strategy aimed at killing the opponent off completely in one attack. All available resources are put into this one attack and no follow-up is being considered. Should the attack fail and the opponent live through it, the game is almost certainly lost to a counter or to superior enemy tech/economy.
A couple of examples:
1. 2gate: Neither cheese nor all-in. A 2gate can be scouted and still put pressure on the opponent. It can do just moderate damage and the executing player can still transition out of it. 2. No lair roach against Z who techs to muta: All-in. The roaches have to win the game, or else the muta will finish the roach player off once your attack is repelled. 3. Fast banshee/void ray/muta: Neither cheese nor all-in. The strategy will almost certainly fail if scouted in time, but it won’t automatically lose the game. 4. Fast reaper (9rax inbase): Neither cheese nor all in. Fails if scouted, sets T back if it fails but doesn’t outright lose the game. 5. Fast reaper (6rax proxy): Cheese and all-in. Fails to kill the opponent if scouted, loses the game if it doesn’t do enough damage to equalize the cut SCV (all-in). 6. 4 gate robo (against 1 base): Neither cheese nor all in 7. 4 gate robo (against expo): Arguably all-in. At some point the expanding player will have the stronger army and the stronger economy – attack has to be effective before. 8. Turtle and tech to guardian / carrier / doom drop / other strong late game strategy: All-in. The late attack has to kill the opponent off or no follow up possible due to build time / resources. 9. 6pool: All-In. Arguably cheese as well, as it is way less effective if scouted early. However the main characteristics of the 6pool is not secrecy but the early attack and the lack of follow up.
As you can see the distinction isn’t always clear, and often enough it’s hard to determine if an attack is all in or not. Also, as with everything in Starcraft those examples don’t have to play out exactly like described.”
An excellent post that should clear up any misunderstandings!
7. Closing thoughts
I wanted to thank Teamliquid.net for being such an awesome site, that made me want to contribute to the community so much that I wrote this! For sharing my passion for a game that came out over 12 years ago, and for keeping the flame burning such a long time.
I also wanted to thank the people that contributed to http://www.liquipedia.net for all the knowledge stored and shared there!
I was gonna try to come up with some cheesy joke about it being a Diamond guide and not gold bt meh.. Very nice guide! The shift + backspace larva inject method is imo crucial for any Zerg who wants to become top tier.
It took 3 nights of insomnia due to too high temperatures to sleep in to write. The hardest part was playing 20 games vs a very easy AI to get all the necessary screenshots. Then of course, some snipping, cutting and resizing in paint to finish the job. Also, I wrote this is Microsoft Word. Coding this for BB Code was a nightmare at first, but got a lot more natural as I was moving forward with it.
Awesome! That injecting larvae trick is a great tip! You might want to put in Mass Infestor somewhere in your guide, as it is becoming very popular....
On July 20 2010 07:25 GenesisX wrote: Awesome! That injecting larvae trick is a great tip! You might want to put in Mass Infestor somewhere in your guide, as it is becoming very popular....
I did mention using infestors is every match up on quite a few occasions. I dunno about massing them. I usually have 3-5 with me any more seems like going overboard to me. You just have to take care of them very well. Keeping them on separe hotkeys, not leaving them alone to get EMPed or sniped, keeping them out of harms way in general, but close enough to your army to support it etc.
In the early game, zerglings dominate any gateway unit the protoss can produce.
This is not true. Zealots absolute murder lings.
What I like to do is get a pack of lings and scout the enemy's ramp. If I see more than 2 zealots I'll throw down the roach warren. Roaches are easily the best unit to deal with zealots early game. If they only build 1 or two zealots and start pumping stalkers, stick with speedlings.
In the early game, zerglings dominate any gateway unit the protoss can produce.
This is not true. Zealots absolute murder lings.
What I like to do is get a pack of lings and scout the enemy's ramp. If I see more than 2 zealots I'll throw down the roach warren. Roaches are easily the best unit to deal with zealots early game. If they only build 1 or two zealots and start pumping stalkers, stick with speedlings.
Get your lair up and decide if you want to get hydra or muta from there.
I disagree. Without +1 attack, zerglings fare a lot better vs zealots than roaches ever would versus stalkers. Zerglings are a lot more flexible. About the only thing roaches do better is attacking the wall in front of the cannons if your opponent went for a FE. Besides, roaches slow down your tech and make you waste gas that could go into ling speed or more mutalisks in a few minutes. If you decide to go both roaches and speed, you're delaying your tech by quite a large amount. Speedlings provide much more threat than roaches do. Backstabs, run-bys, the possibility of morphing into banelings etc. give you a much wider play field.
edit: I'm assuming we're talking about 1-2 gate openings. If it's 3-4 gate without expo, get roaches to defend, naturally. Survival above all else.
1) start new game 2) baneling bust all-in or don't. if you don't, move on to step 3. 3) defend yourself from the over 9000 kinds of cheese that T can throw at you while you tech to units that will allow you to actually attack and not get completely flattened. If you can't, go back to 1. 4) congratulations, you've reached the stage of the game where you actually may have a chance to win. now macro up godmode like and IF you manage to get a good flank or pull some tricky burrow or the multitude of options that zerg uhh.. yeah burrow without the T scouting it, you win one battle. If you fail at doing this, you lose and go back to step 1. 5) repeat a few times to build up a strong enough advantage so you can actually break into T's main. If you actually made more than 5 mutas and T isn't completely terrible, you lose, go back to step 1. 6) of course your initial attack gets more or less melted, but it's ok T is not imba because now you can use twice the resources that T had to get to respawn a bunch of units and attack again! yippie! If you can't keep up at this point, as usual, go back to step 1. 7) maybe win, if you've basically been outplaying your opponent by a large margin all game long. Game should total at least 30ish minutes+, because you better earn that shit baby.
This is great. As time goes by, it would be cool to add in vods of BOs/army comps/playstyles by different pros. To me, nothing is more informative than to see the theoretical being applied in actual games. Good work!
Great guide. One thing I noticed was that you indicated that you worker split at the start of the game. I remember it was mentioned on here that because of the new smart AI added to workers, there is no need to do this as you gain no advantage to work splitting. The thread calculated total mined minerals at certain intervals in the early game and discovered them to be the same. I can't find the thread tho...
I usually do the extractor trick differently I make drones up to 10 supply, queue up an overlord then make an extractor and another drone. It also works out to when the ovie hatches I have ~100mins and 2 larva.
Is there any hard data on which opening is the fastest?
On July 20 2010 09:14 sdrawkcab wrote: I usually do the extractor trick differently I make drones up to 10 supply, queue up an overlord then make an extractor and another drone. It also works out to when the ovie hatches I have ~100mins and 2 larva.
Is there any hard data on which opening is the fastest?
On July 20 2010 08:56 Brazen[six] wrote: Great guide. One thing I noticed was that you indicated that you worker split at the start of the game. I remember it was mentioned on here that because of the new smart AI added to workers, there is no need to do this as you gain no advantage to work splitting. The thread calculated total mined minerals at certain intervals in the early game and discovered them to be the same. I can't find the thread tho...
All I can say it depends on the map (mineral positioning) and where you send your workers. If you send all 6 to the most central mineral field that has ~5 other fields is close proximity, it won't matter. If they are grouped in 3s or the like, you might get a minimal profit from splitting. If the minerals are spread out in front of your hatch, not in 1 big clump and you send your all 6 of your workers to 1 side, it's better split them into two groups of 3s, and to send the other 3 to another "3 mineral clump" In the end it's just doing the same thing the AI would do for you 1s later, but it's correcting the miscalculations for the AI in advance.
I put all my overlords on hotkey 0 in the early-game. once lair is finished, just hit '0', 'g', and all your overlords will start generting creep. If you have your overlords correctly positioned, you can instantly generate a creeproute halfway across the map.
I put all my overlords on hotkey 0 in the early-game. once lair is finished, just hit '0', 'g', and all your overlords will start generting creep. If you have your overlords correctly positioned, you can instantly generate a creeproute halfway across the map.
I probably should mention also, that spreading creep on unused expansions could halt your opponent’s expanding until he gets rid of your overlord there.
I think you should bold this. Every single zerg player should do this.
This is pure gold, and why I love this race. I can't thank you enough for the time and effort you put into this, so all I can say is that I hope I meet you on the battlefield, as I know it would be a wonderful game.
1) I love you. 2) Musta taken a while huh? 3) You have a bery vad computer, like me. 4) Do more of these, but for terren toss and X 5) Holy wall of text...
Soooo nicee! Seriously, this is awesome. How much coffee did you say you had to drink...? This is just such a solid ground, I hope you keep writing on more advanced stuff too, or if you know how to I'm sure the newcomers of the other two races might fall in love with you too if you make guides for them as well =)
Since, I'm awake now I'll answer more questions :| (and do a stealth bump at that!)
On July 20 2010 11:51 Thoreezhea wrote: 1) I love you. 2) Musta taken a while huh? 3) You have a bery vad computer, like me. 4) Do more of these, but for terren toss and X 5) Holy wall of text...
1) <3 2)
On July 20 2010 07:24 Latham wrote: It took 3 nights of insomnia due to too high temperatures to sleep in to write. The hardest part was playing 20 games vs a very easy AI to get all the necessary screenshots. Then of course, some snipping, cutting and resizing in paint to finish the job. Also, I wrote this is Microsoft Word. Coding this for BB Code was a nightmare at first, but got a lot more natural as I was moving forward with it.
I don't drink coffee on a daily basis. It's all natural. I prefer tea without sugar or anything else. 3) I game on a 2004 Sony Vaio laptop bro! ;-) Everything on low/off except for models and textures which are on high, resolution being 1400x900 and 3D portraits. Getting around 60-70 fps which I'm satisfied with. If I put shaders on medium, I drop to 15 fps which makes it unplayable =( 4) I'm actually interested in writing a Protoss guide, but my PvT is terrible. My winrate is literally around 20% in PvT. Can't play it to save my life. T guide not so much because, I consider most thing intuitive there. What would I put in a T guide? How to build thors and tanks and wall-in? Meh, maybe I'll do it, but I need to seriously brainstorm it. 5) I feel the holy wall of text is, for the most part, divided nicely by pictures and witty captions.
I'm around a top 30 diamond league playing Z as my main on Europe.
Great overview covering all the essentials. I used the first way to inject larva but ill try the second one...it seems really sweet in the youtube video
Unless I missed it I think you should mention something about detection since it isn't always obvious to new players. I've played Zerg for quite a while now and just figured out spore crawlers are detectors since I don't build them often. I also didn't realize fungal growth could be a detector.
On July 21 2010 00:29 freestalker wrote: You have a bug in the text..
The units are generally fast, weak and cheap
Should be.. The units are generally weak and cheap, sometimes fast
No trolling. It's true Only 'fast' units are lings and mutas, tbh.
But it seems you put a lot of effort into it. Well done, it looks good.
xD
On July 20 2010 23:05 EnderCN wrote: Unless I missed it I think you should mention something about detection since it isn't always obvious to new players. I've played Zerg for quite a while now and just figured out spore crawlers are detectors since I don't build them often. I also didn't realize fungal growth could be a detector.
I'm pretty sure I talked about overseers on multiple occasions. Well, like I said in the intro, this guide assumes you know which building does what, same goes for the units. I'm just giving advice on how to use them effectively.
On July 21 2010 01:20 Latham wrote: Well, like I said in the intro, this guide assumes you know which building does what, same goes for the units.
About that: I found that part a bit misleading. A good 2/3rds of the guide is actually incredibly basic and seems aimed a bit more towards completely new players.
Great read though. Loved this guide. A must-read for any new Zerg player.
On July 20 2010 18:28 Latham wrote:What would I put in a T guide? How to build thors and tanks and wall-in? Meh, maybe I'll do it, but I need to seriously brainstorm it.
Could be a detailed explanation of the 1a2a3a strategy.
Or what are the best TV shows to watch while playing so you don't get bored turtling.
On July 21 2010 01:20 Latham wrote: Well, like I said in the intro, this guide assumes you know which building does what, same goes for the units.
About that: I found that part a bit misleading. A good 2/3rds of the guide is actually incredibly basic and seems aimed a bit more towards completely new players.
Great read though. Loved this guide. A must-read for any new Zerg player.
Just because you know what an overlord is and that it flies, it doesn't necessarily mean you know where to put them or how to effectively use them. Same goes for creating arcs with hydralisks, scouting with lings etc. Besides, I'm sure we'll be getting an influx of player from a lot of different RTSes like Warcraft III, Red Alert 3, Command and Conquer, Company of Heroes or different game genres in general, that haven't necessarily played Starcraft before. What might seem basic to you like proper scouting or using terrain to your advantage, might be a total foreign concept to them.
On July 20 2010 18:28 Latham wrote:What would I put in a T guide? How to build thors and tanks and wall-in? Meh, maybe I'll do it, but I need to seriously brainstorm it.
Could be a detailed explanation of the 1a2a3a strategy.
Or what are the best TV shows to watch while playing so you don't get bored turtling.
Great guide btw.
Building Wall sand clicking the 'Siege' button requires great skill!!
On July 20 2010 09:14 sdrawkcab wrote: I usually do the extractor trick differently I make drones up to 10 supply, queue up an overlord then make an extractor and another drone. It also works out to when the ovie hatches I have ~100mins and 2 larva.
Is there any hard data on which opening is the fastest?
On July 20 2010 08:56 Brazen[six] wrote: Great guide. One thing I noticed was that you indicated that you worker split at the start of the game. I remember it was mentioned on here that because of the new smart AI added to workers, there is no need to do this as you gain no advantage to work splitting. The thread calculated total mined minerals at certain intervals in the early game and discovered them to be the same. I can't find the thread tho...
All I can say it depends on the map (mineral positioning) and where you send your workers. If you send all 6 to the most central mineral field that has ~5 other fields is close proximity, it won't matter. If they are grouped in 3s or the like, you might get a minimal profit from splitting. If the minerals are spread out in front of your hatch, not in 1 big clump and you send your all 6 of your workers to 1 side, it's better split them into two groups of 3s, and to send the other 3 to another "3 mineral clump" In the end it's just doing the same thing the AI would do for you 1s later, but it's correcting the miscalculations for the AI in advance.
You only get five net minerals.
You can get pretty much an equal gain by stealing a mineral from an opponent's line with your worker scout and bringing it back to your base... I don't think anyone would bother including that in a guide. In the interests of brevity you should probably cut it.
This is a great guide Thank you for putting it together. My only real comment/criticism is in reference to your ZvP section.
First and foremost, Protoss is at a distinct advantage early game. Zealots murder Zerglings and Stalkers beat out Roaches assuming good micro. I think the balance switches to Z's favor once you've gotten your lair and first expansion up, but you still need to be hyper aware for the dreaded 4 gate push. If you whore drones too much that will just kill you outright.
I also question your choice of Muta versus Protoss. This is a matter of style so take my comments with a grain of salt, but against a gateway heavy build or a 4 gate, the Protoss will just push you and kill you even if you are harassing his main. This isn't a guide on builds so maybe my comments are out of place, but I would caution newer players from thinking Mutas are the best unit in all 3 match ups.
Also, Ultralisks absolutely RAPE the gateway + collosi mix and with some hydra back up they shut down the gateway robo build pretty well too. The last few patches really brought the Ultra back into the game, and I'd encourage people to try them out as much as possible in ZvP in particular.
Otherwise though, awesome awesome guide. Thanks for the hard work! Only 7 days left!
Like several other people I found comments on zerglings murdering zealots a bit optimistic. In ideal circumstances, when you can get a full surround, lings are perhaps better for their mineral cost, but frequently your lings have to fight line vs line because of terrain or army positioning. I guess this just goes to show how important flanking and getting good attack angles is.
One thing I felt was left out is the upgrade battle between zealots and zerglings. As Day 9 likes to point out, if zealots are ahead in attack upgrades relative to zergling carapace upgrades then they only take 2 hits rather than 3 to kill the lings, so staying at least even on carapace upgrades is very important in ZvP.
On July 21 2010 04:34 Chex wrote: This is a great guide Thank you for putting it together. My only real comment/criticism is in reference to your ZvP section.
First and foremost, Protoss is at a distinct advantage early game. Zealots murder Zerglings and Stalkers beat out Roaches assuming good micro. I think the balance switches to Z's favor once you've gotten your lair and first expansion up, but you still need to be hyper aware for the dreaded 4 gate push. If you whore drones too much that will just kill you outright.
I also question your choice of Muta versus Protoss. This is a matter of style so take my comments with a grain of salt, but against a gateway heavy build or a 4 gate, the Protoss will just push you and kill you even if you are harassing his main. This isn't a guide on builds so maybe my comments are out of place, but I would caution newer players from thinking Mutas are the best unit in all 3 match ups.
Also, Ultralisks absolutely RAPE the gateway + collosi mix and with some hydra back up they shut down the gateway robo build pretty well too. The last few patches really brought the Ultra back into the game, and I'd encourage people to try them out as much as possible in ZvP in particular.
Otherwise though, awesome awesome guide. Thanks for the hard work! Only 7 days left!
I am a very strong believer that mutas are a very good choice as opening tech at tier 2 in any match up and in almost any situation. Many protoss have problems when the Z does a switch from mutalisks to hydralisks. They overcompensate for mutalisks with building massive amounts of stalkers or cannons which aren't all that great vs hydralisks or even mass lings for that matter, once you make that switch. In addition you'll already have your spire up and will be able to pump corruptors once colossi show up. Again, make 6-12 mutas and switch techs. Mutas aren't supposed to win you the game, they are there to screw with your opponent. I feel like most people don't understand that.
I'll also stand by my zerglings. No one is telling you to turn on berserker mode and throw wave after wave after wave of zerglings into a wall of zealots. Play smart, try to fight on creep, put up 2-3 spine crawlers if you have to, just defend your nat and whore drones. Once you get muta/ling or hydras out you'll steamroll his contain. If it's a 4-gate that rarely has a follow up, just wait him out. He'll eventually get desperate and attack into your nat.
Fine, I caved. I changed it -.- , geez you people are so damn annoying some times xP
I only had 2 games that I made ultra 1st was me against some bronze P scrub on scrap that I beat with ultraling and 2nd was a ZvT game on meta where I took a very early gold expansion and just teched to Tier 3 like mad. So as you can see I can't really comment on ultras. I usually don't have the money to get more than 1 at a time.
On July 21 2010 04:57 Illykai wrote: I greatly enjoyed the guide.
One thing I felt was left out is the upgrade battle between zealots and zerglings. As Day 9 likes to point out, if zealots are ahead in attack upgrades relative to zergling carapace upgrades then they only take 2 hits rather than 3 to kill the lings, so staying at least even on carapace upgrades is very important in ZvP.
Yeah, I honestly don't know how that slipped my mind while writing the guide. Added!
Seriously man, some good stuff in here. With some reformatting we could have some great articles. This topic'll be old in a week, the wiki will live forever!
(well okay not forever maybe cause of the zombie apolcalypse but ok)
I will be switching to Zerg after release, and have been practicing my macro in the build order tester. After reading the macro section I am still a little unclear about the best way to control unit production from hatcheries. I assume the best way to create offensive units is to bind every hatch to one key and macro from there, simple enough.
What i am having trouble with is building drones to saturate a new expansion. When i have to build more drones (after the initial transfer), I have heard to simply set the rally point of all your hatcheries to the new expansion and build drones as you would army units, but this seems inefficient (extra travel time, danger of being picked off as they move to the expansion), so would binding every hatchery to it's own hotkey be the best way to solve this problem (and make drones where they are needed)? Or perhaps a hotkey that is always my newest expansion? any advice for an efficient way to do this would be great.
On July 23 2010 04:51 evilshady wrote: Very nice to see someone putting so much effort in helping others with a good guide, but:
" It is advised to keep corruptors near broodlords to help fend off vikings."
Immediately stopped reading here The rest i read from it was pretty correct, though. Hope u keep up the work.
Cause queens or hydras are much better vs vikings, right?
yeah.. almost anything you make in zvt aren't gonna be cost-effective so corruptors to kill vikings is fine, if he overcommits to vikings you can most likely switch to ultraling and he won't have enough tanks/thors to stand a chance against what with all the vikings
What i am having trouble with is building drones to saturate a new expansion. When i have to build more drones (after the initial transfer), I have heard to simply set the rally point of all your hatcheries to the new expansion and build drones as you would army units, but this seems inefficient (extra travel time, danger of being picked off as they move to the expansion), so would binding every hatchery to it's own hotkey be the best way to solve this problem (and make drones where they are needed)? Or perhaps a hotkey that is always my newest expansion? any advice for an efficient way to do this would be great.
Generally, if I don't fast expand at 13-15 supply, I will over-saturate my main with about 30-35 drones. When my expo comes up I will box select about 10 of the drones on minerals at my main and send them to the expo. I will also transfer my queen to the expo, and will usually have a second queen up already or will be building another queen at the main. As soon as the vomit larvae is ready I will turn those 4 larvae, along with the first few larvae that spawn at the expo to drones. So very quickly I have 15-20 drones on my expo. I set the expo to a new hotkey, but I also add it to the hotkey for my main hatch as well. I do this so I can select the expo specifically to build extra drones, but since it's also on the main hotkey if I need to train a lot of units quick I can use the larvae for that as well. Hope this helps.
Quick rundown: 30+ drones at your main and 2 queens (if you didn't do a super early expo) Transfer about 10 drones and a queen to the expo when it comes up. Train first 7 larvae (3 hatch spawn, 4 spawn larvae) as drones.
This should get your expo at 15-17 drones very quickly.. then just continue to add from there.
One of my favorite things about Zerg is how quickly they are able to saturate an expo. With 2 hatches if you are keeping spawn larvae up on both you should have a lot of larvae built up, and can easily train 5-10 drones at once.
On July 23 2010 04:51 evilshady wrote: Very nice to see someone putting so much effort in helping others with a good guide, but:
" It is advised to keep corruptors near broodlords to help fend off vikings."
Immediately stopped reading here The rest i read from it was pretty correct, though. Hope u keep up the work.
What should be wrong with this?
Ok its not totally wrong to have a few corrupters if you go really heavy air, but that sounds like corrupters are the natural counter vs vikings which is wrong because mutas are WAY more cost effective vs vikings.
Damn when did you have the time to make this I hope this helps out a lot of zergs out there become better I would love to see such a intricate guide for protoss and terran from other people as well. Good job!
Seriously man, some good stuff in here. With some reformatting we could have some great articles. This topic'll be old in a week, the wiki will live forever!
(well okay not forever maybe cause of the zombie apolcalypse but ok)
On July 23 2010 04:51 evilshady wrote: Very nice to see someone putting so much effort in helping others with a good guide, but:
" It is advised to keep corruptors near broodlords to help fend off vikings."
Immediately stopped reading here The rest i read from it was pretty correct, though. Hope u keep up the work.
What should be wrong with this?
Ok its not totally wrong to have a few corrupters if you go really heavy air, but that sounds like corrupters are the natural counter vs vikings which is wrong because mutas are WAY more cost effective vs vikings.
The problem is mutalisk range. It's 3. The vikings will have plenty of time to shoot and run back to thors that will absolutely annihilate your mutalisks. Corruptors have range 5-6. They aren't there to kill the vikings per-se, they're there to take the hits that would otherwise kill the boordlords. With range 5-6 instead of 3 they might actually get a hit on vikings maybe killing 1? They just provide threat with their range and damage, so the vikings won't ignore them and go straight for the broodlords.
And sorry for not answering this earlier, my modem caught on fire 2 days ago :|. There was literally smoke coming out of it like someone would blow out a match, so I needed a new one xD lol.
This is amazing. Thank you so much for doing this for the community. Tons of new players are really going to appreciate the effort you put forth in this guide. This is the sort of thing you'll find on TeamLiquid but nowhere else. I'm going to show this guide to all my friends new to SC2 that play Zerg.
Latham, as I said, my feelings about Muta are just my own experience.
Truth be told I'm not that awesome with micro yet and I feel that I don't do well balancing the micro intensive muta while keeping my Macro up. The result is I either don't do enough damage and can't justify the expense of the muta or I do damage but don't really get a lead because I've let my macro slip so much.
That is mostly a skill issue though. But I stand by my feeling that muta can be very week if the P just decides to push you with a 4 gate. Just something to be aware of for the mid-game.
That said, I like your comment about forcing a reaction out of the protoss player. It is true that people often see air and go crazy overboard with their anti air. I experience this in ZvZ a lot when I get mutas and then use the breathing room to get roaches while I tech hive to brood lords. It's definitely a viable strategy and I think the basis behind 1 base muta against terran. Force the heavy thor and push with Roaches.
On Ultras I would post some replays but I don't think I'm the best example of their usefulness as I'm only low Diamond, but I've been loving them. Honestly I'm trying to find a workable build for each match-up that lets me get Ultras. Nothing kills stalkers faster though. It's a beautiful sight to be behold.
On July 23 2010 04:51 evilshady wrote: Very nice to see someone putting so much effort in helping others with a good guide, but:
" It is advised to keep corruptors near broodlords to help fend off vikings."
Immediately stopped reading here The rest i read from it was pretty correct, though. Hope u keep up the work.
What should be wrong with this?
Ok its not totally wrong to have a few corrupters if you go really heavy air, but that sounds like corrupters are the natural counter vs vikings which is wrong because mutas are WAY more cost effective vs vikings.
The problem is mutalisk range. It's 3. The vikings will have plenty of time to shoot and run back to thors that will absolutely annihilate your mutalisks. Corruptors have range 5-6. They aren't there to kill the vikings per-se, they're there to take the hits that would otherwise kill the boordlords. With range 5-6 instead of 3 they might actually get a hit on vikings maybe killing 1? They just provide threat with their range and damage, so the vikings won't ignore them and go straight for the broodlords.
I dont disagree with what you saying, but nevertheless the main guard units have to be mutas. Its the broodlords job to deal with the thors.
Sorry mods, but I'm going to bump this. The reason is, that the game is finally released and maybe some people did not see it, or will want to switch races or something. Please don't temp ban <3
On July 23 2010 04:51 evilshady wrote: Very nice to see someone putting so much effort in helping others with a good guide, but:
" It is advised to keep corruptors near broodlords to help fend off vikings."
Immediately stopped reading here The rest i read from it was pretty correct, though. Hope u keep up the work.
What should be wrong with this?
Ok its not totally wrong to have a few corrupters if you go really heavy air, but that sounds like corrupters are the natural counter vs vikings which is wrong because mutas are WAY more cost effective vs vikings.
The problem is mutalisk range. It's 3. The vikings will have plenty of time to shoot and run back to thors that will absolutely annihilate your mutalisks. Corruptors have range 5-6. They aren't there to kill the vikings per-se, they're there to take the hits that would otherwise kill the boordlords. With range 5-6 instead of 3 they might actually get a hit on vikings maybe killing 1? They just provide threat with their range and damage, so the vikings won't ignore them and go straight for the broodlords.
And sorry for not answering this earlier, my modem caught on fire 2 days ago :|. There was literally smoke coming out of it like someone would blow out a match, so I needed a new one xD lol.
Generally, if the terran ball has Thors (or alot of marines) you should use corrupters since the fact that they are armored makes them impervious to Thors. Otherwise mutalisks are alot better to take care of any vikings. This is my own experience though.
On July 23 2010 04:51 evilshady wrote: Very nice to see someone putting so much effort in helping others with a good guide, but:
" It is advised to keep corruptors near broodlords to help fend off vikings."
Immediately stopped reading here The rest i read from it was pretty correct, though. Hope u keep up the work.
What should be wrong with this?
Ok its not totally wrong to have a few corrupters if you go really heavy air, but that sounds like corrupters are the natural counter vs vikings which is wrong because mutas are WAY more cost effective vs vikings.
The problem is mutalisk range. It's 3. The vikings will have plenty of time to shoot and run back to thors that will absolutely annihilate your mutalisks. Corruptors have range 5-6. They aren't there to kill the vikings per-se, they're there to take the hits that would otherwise kill the boordlords. With range 5-6 instead of 3 they might actually get a hit on vikings maybe killing 1? They just provide threat with their range and damage, so the vikings won't ignore them and go straight for the broodlords.
And sorry for not answering this earlier, my modem caught on fire 2 days ago :|. There was literally smoke coming out of it like someone would blow out a match, so I needed a new one xD lol.
Generally, if the terran ball has Thors (or alot of marines) you should use corrupters since the fact that they are armored makes them impervious to Thors. Otherwise mutalisks are alot better to take care of any vikings. This is my own experience though.
I agree with you, but nowadays which T ball doesn't have thors? I assumed that the enemy will have them at some point. They're ridiculously good vs everything practically. I'd still be a little afraid of marines shredding my mutas if I get too close, but yeah, if there are no thors, go mutas.
On August 01 2010 21:57 Jimmy Raynor wrote: I have a question as a player that almost never played zerg. What is generally a good time to upgrade to lair, and later to hive?
Generally, at the pro level, lair is upgraded right after zergling speed, with the second hundred gas if they're not doing early aggression or roaches or whatnot. Hive is super ambiguous with players normally getting it when they feel they need +3, ultras, or broodlords.
On July 23 2010 04:51 evilshady wrote: Very nice to see someone putting so much effort in helping others with a good guide, but:
" It is advised to keep corruptors near broodlords to help fend off vikings."
Immediately stopped reading here The rest i read from it was pretty correct, though. Hope u keep up the work.
What should be wrong with this?
Ok its not totally wrong to have a few corrupters if you go really heavy air, but that sounds like corrupters are the natural counter vs vikings which is wrong because mutas are WAY more cost effective vs vikings.
The problem is mutalisk range. It's 3. The vikings will have plenty of time to shoot and run back to thors that will absolutely annihilate your mutalisks. Corruptors have range 5-6. They aren't there to kill the vikings per-se, they're there to take the hits that would otherwise kill the boordlords. With range 5-6 instead of 3 they might actually get a hit on vikings maybe killing 1? They just provide threat with their range and damage, so the vikings won't ignore them and go straight for the broodlords.
And sorry for not answering this earlier, my modem caught on fire 2 days ago :|. There was literally smoke coming out of it like someone would blow out a match, so I needed a new one xD lol.
Generally, if the terran ball has Thors (or alot of marines) you should use corrupters since the fact that they are armored makes them impervious to Thors. Otherwise mutalisks are alot better to take care of any vikings. This is my own experience though.
I agree with you, but nowadays which T ball doesn't have thors? I assumed that the enemy will have them at some point. They're ridiculously good vs everything practically. I'd still be a little afraid of marines shredding my mutas if I get too close, but yeah, if there are no thors, go mutas.
Muta ling Baneling is super potent against ANYTHING bio, including Bio Mech. Hell, even IdrA loves using it.
On August 01 2010 21:57 Jimmy Raynor wrote: I have a question as a player that almost never played zerg. What is generally a good time to upgrade to lair, and later to hive?
Generally, at the pro level, lair is upgraded right after zergling speed, with the second hundred gas if they're not doing early aggression or roaches or whatnot. Hive is super ambiguous with players normally getting it when they feel they need +3, ultras, or broodlords.
Thx for the advice, but most players pull away from gas the drones after the speed upgrade, right? If so, what would be a good time to put them back in so I get enough for lair upgrade?
On August 01 2010 21:57 Jimmy Raynor wrote: I have a question as a player that almost never played zerg. What is generally a good time to upgrade to lair, and later to hive?
Generally, at the pro level, lair is upgraded right after zergling speed, with the second hundred gas if they're not doing early aggression or roaches or whatnot. Hive is super ambiguous with players normally getting it when they feel they need +3, ultras, or broodlords.
Thx for the advice, but most players pull away from gas the drones after the speed upgrade, right? If so, what would be a good time to put them back in so I get enough for lair upgrade?
Probably when your expansion is relatively well saturated or so. I'm not familiar with exact zerg timings. (I've only played a little bit of zerg.)
On August 01 2010 21:57 Jimmy Raynor wrote: I have a question as a player that almost never played zerg. What is generally a good time to upgrade to lair, and later to hive?
Generally, at the pro level, lair is upgraded right after zergling speed, with the second hundred gas if they're not doing early aggression or roaches or whatnot. Hive is super ambiguous with players normally getting it when they feel they need +3, ultras, or broodlords.
Thx for the advice, but most players pull away from gas the drones after the speed upgrade, right? If so, what would be a good time to put them back in so I get enough for lair upgrade?
Probably when your expansion is relatively well saturated or so. I'm not familiar with exact zerg timings. (I've only played a little bit of zerg.)
What kind of build did you do? 14 extract 13 pool 22-ish hatch? 13 pool 15 hatch? If it was 13pool 15hatch, I wouldn't take the drones off gas. It's late already as it is. No point in delaying it any more or mutas/banshees/voids/phoenixes are gonna rape you.
If you went earlier gas, put them on after you put down your natural hatchery.
On August 01 2010 20:31 massivez wrote: Nice guide, helped me alot. also have prolly a stupid question : how do you put multiple hatcheries on 1 hotkey?
Select hatch + press Ctrl down + click on other hatches you want hotkeyed and press the number you want it hotkeyed to.
This is an outstanding guide. I literally registered just to commend you on your great write-up. I don't even play zerg, and yet I am deeply thankful for the work that you put in.
Protoss only beta player here. I decided to switch to Zerg, then I found this guide. Thought, what a boss mode, mofo. Thanks for the work man. It already helped me out alot. You goddamn magnificent beast.
Super helpful post, thanks alot, used as much of what I learned as I could, but still very new to this game, only played about 10 games or so (and beat campaign on normal). Used to play SC1, never got very good at it. I was hoping anyone who is at least semi-decent with zerg could help critique my replay of me beating some guy.The biggest thing I notice is my lack of scouting frequently resulted in this game taking about 10 minutes longer than it should have, I was overly careful, but anyways, critique away! Point out every little flaw you can think of, or if that takes to long just the big obvious ones
Amazing guide! Good job and thank you very much! I learned a lot about Z with it, and knowing ur enemy is a really important thing! And of course there were some general advices, that i can use in my gameplay!
Is someone writing one for Protoss (aka Toss or P)? I will love a guide of this quality for them
On August 05 2010 11:18 kmillz wrote: Super helpful post, thanks alot, used as much of what I learned as I could, but still very new to this game, only played about 10 games or so (and beat campaign on normal). Used to play SC1, never got very good at it. I was hoping anyone who is at least semi-decent with zerg could help critique my replay of me beating some guy.The biggest thing I notice is my lack of scouting frequently resulted in this game taking about 10 minutes longer than it should have, I was overly careful, but anyways, critique away! Point out every little flaw you can think of, or if that takes to long just the big obvious ones
1.You sent your initial overlord in the wrong direction. The map is Steppes of War and is a 2 player map. send the overlord to his base in a straight line. If he's protoss don't hesitate send it straight in. If he's terran. send it either behind the minerals @ nat, or to the sides of his base over the empty space. 2. set up rally points. Select the hatch and right click on the minerals, and the ground (preferably by your choke/ramp) This will auto-rally your workers to minerals and all your other units to your choke. 3. scout your opponent with a drone early game. The best is using that 10th drone after the overlord. Send it directly to his base, don't worry if it will die, but try to not let it die so easily. 4. Three workers on gas, from the start. Take 3 off minerals and put them on gas. 5. The very early spine was useless. It's sometimes good to have it, but at that time you were blind and didn't know if you really needed it. Better to have 1 more drone working than a useless spine. 6. Hotkey everything son. From the very first overlord and hatchery to the very end of the game. 7. Use your minerals. Expand to another base (preferably closest to you = your natural). Don't get supply blocked. If you see a stargate and you're still at tier 1, get more queens and tech ASAP. That's what a 2nd hatch is for too, more queens while you tech. 8. INJECT INJECT INJECT. All game long, not only the first 2 times. With left over energy, put up creep tumors. 9. Don't just sit around with your army. Destroy the destructible rocks and open up the way to your 3rd. 10. Send your overlords to the other expands. Spread creep on them so he won't be able to take em. 11. Keep tabs on your enemy to know what he is doing. Make 1-2 or 3 overseers just in case. 1 near his base, the other(s) in your base(s).
Thanks alot for the feedback latham! I realized that I was still T1 when I noticed he had a Starport so I kinda freaked out making those 2 AA spine crawlers. I didn't realize how far back I set up his economy (or how slow he was) so I over-estimated what he was able to send at me. What is a good general X/X for upgrading to T2/T3? I know it varies game to game, but just something to start with.
Great guide. I really like the breakdown of all-ins vs legit builds.
I'd like to see some more added about the magic box. Specifically, the risks involved. Fighting marines or turrets requires that the mutas be stacked while fighting thors requires that they be spread. This can lead to mutas being shut down if terrans use a good combo of the two. Also, if you go magic box over the thors, you've commited to the fight. You cannot effectively run away without coming out far behind, due to the thors large range, and repairability.
Edit: Also, in the ZvZ section, you said
Do you know what’s the difference between a 10 pool and a 14 pool? 10 dead drones for the 14-pooler. Being too greedy, can result in very bad backlash.
I'm not sure about that. I believe you can hold a ten pool with a 14 pool. It's pretty close, but certainly on a big map. I know you can hold a 6 pool with a 12 pool, so I'd think 14 would hold 10. The principle you're getting at is important though.
As far as ZvZ goes, i don't see ling/bling openers anymore. (almost none existent really) Ever since the recent patch 1.1.2, a lot of people have switched to zerg. Very annoying as currently I am forced to play more ZvZ's than ZvT's or ZvP's combined.
From what I can gather, people think that roaches are the "end all be all" unit in ZvZ. for example, on xelnaga caverns, i have seen now over 4 separate people go for the same build order- 7 roach rush into expand while attacking.
There are also now a lot more build orders- I think TL has established that 16 hatch 15 pool IS viable, sure you may be on the defensive if they go all in, but it still is reasonable. It also makes for some really epic games if both zergs go 16 hatch 15 pool (like on scrap station.) I have recently been experimenting with 12 hatch roach, its a really interesting concept, go to the pedai and check it out for sure. I've actually found that ZvZ all comes down to who can secure the expansion over the other opponent, and has greatly shifted away from ling bling wars.
this was so awesome I cant describe it, you know when you've been taught a lot, and learnt a lot... when you somehow feel more confused than before~~ all of a sudden I'm asking question that never occurred to me before, things that were in the 'too-hard' basket I'm now ready to tackle... awesome
Haha yeah guys, I know what you're getting at. @ Lobo: Yeah you can stop it, I just used that as an example really, just to get my point across. I haven't played awhile but once I get back to it, I'll put up a more realistic example.
@Zvendetta: Well you see, I agree that roach is better on small(er) maps like Steppes. But on bigger maps, I tend to favour ling/bling because people tend to be aggressive with their roaches, and I can easy backstab with lings, kill drones/queen and still make it back to pincer in the roaches.
But there are people who just defend with or expo behind their roaches, which really makes me feel behind, since my excess lings are quite useless.
It's a matter of use. I'm just used to using a LOT of lings in every match up, so I tend to favour mobility, map control and aggressive play. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
The ladder is hell for us original Zs now. What was once 1-2 ZvZs per 10 games, now is 5 ZvZs. Very very disheartening. That's one of the reasons why my bonus pool is up in the 800's. I just stopped playing.
Yeah expands are really key. If you watched Dimaga vs Check(?) 17173.com World Cup finals during the beta, it was shown in a really obvious manner. 7 ZvZs and the one that managed to defend (or get up first) their expo, won the games.
I do believe I wrote to check liquipedia for buildz anywayz, but I'll read the articles there myself, and if the deviation is really noticeable, I'll rewrite the ZvZ section.
Just shifted to Zerg and this writeup was awesome to give me an intro. Thanks a lot for posting this! I hope we can keep this updated (are volunteers allowed?)
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