EPTThe Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 134
| Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy |
Make sure you read the OP before asking a question. Asking a question already addressed in the OP will result in moderation action. Also, please put some effort into your questions. | ||
|
Goldbullet
United States88 Posts
| ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Roach drops, and harassment in general, is not a good idea against deathball styles as they are just turtling on 3 bases, and have warp gate. They have plenty of money to make a ton of cannons too, as it's gas heavy. So you delay hive tech just to do a pitiful roach drop, basically do zero damage and lose a large chunk of your army, then protoss a-moves and steamrolls you because he knows you have nothing. Deathball play is a lot more common in the lower leagues, because good macro play pretty much beats it. That's why you never see it in pro play. But in diamond and even low masters, it's very common, and I'm well aware of how god damn frustrating it can be to deal with. You should really focus on working on better play rather than how to counter X build - this game is not about countering units, but about macro and timings. This is a big part of why you are probably losing, thinking it's about trying to fight the deathball some way, or thinking you have to do an attack/harass that's overly desperate and does no damage, or doing some mid-game all-in that will fail miserably. If Protoss is really just turtling it up on 3 base, the 'easiest' answer I suppose is just to rush hive as soon as you see both robotics support bay and starport up, saturate 4 bases quickly with 100 drones, and go pure BL/Infestor - about 10-15 Broodlords, and 10-20 Infestors. This will actually max you out, and you should have literally zero supply in ground units except for drones and queens. Then just push, and micro well, and deny the 4th, or 5th at least. However, to be more specific... In ZvP, you need to take a fast third before lair against Protoss. General build order against FFE, for example, is - 30 third, single gas, @100 gas ling speed - 7:00 evo, sac 2 overlords - 7:00-7:30 roach warren - 8:00 pure units to hold off gateway pressure. If no gateway pressure or you hold it off, get macro hatch, lair, 2 more gas, a fourth, and roach speed. Your biggest priority is to have an overlord watching the natural's gas. If no gas there, it's 7 gate all-in or 6 gate+1 (confirmed by seeing lots of gateways with overlords, or units, or spinning forge). Make 100% units basically. If 1 gas, could be anything. If 2 gas, it's usually double stargate, make 3 spores per base, add more, then spire when you can and purely drone up and make lots of lings and faster macro hatch. Put a spore down at third and natural if 1 or 2 gas at natural for possible DT if you see gateways in the main, if you don't see gateways, it's stargate, if you see gateways warping in, probably stargate, coul d be blink, could be anything really. Could even be robo. Against 3 gate sentry expand, just make units before third. You need to mass units to deny your fast third, then get lair once you've held off the opponent (lair tech will never arrive in time to use to any effect to defend, and you'll die if you go lair while going fast third), and then you use those same units to deny Protoss' third. If they go robo, then just go 3 base mass muta, get a fourth when safe and try to base trade if you can't kill outright. This kills deathball very well. But in general, you jsut need to deny deny deny protoss' third, and deathball cannot secure their third against sheer mass ling/speedroach. You are losing the macro game, but are under the impression it's really the deathball. | ||
|
bingobango
26 Posts
| ||
|
Mjolnir
912 Posts
On December 23 2011 07:42 Belial88 wrote: You can't really harass a turtling protoss. Warp-ins, forcefields, et cetera... it sounds like some dumb protoss said 'lol harass more' to you, but it's pretty much impossible to harass a protoss who's turtling on 2 or 3 bases unless you go muta style. Maybe you should stop all-inning. That's probably why you lack the fundamentals to play a real macro game. Double starport is an all-in, so you need to treat it just as cautiously as you'd deal with a 4 gate. I'm assuming you took a fast third, please, if you dont take a fast third against FFE then you really need to go back to the drawing board - but you defend with mass spores and queens. You should be saccing at a minimum, 3 overlords against FFE around the 7:00 mark, and if you see no buildings, like no mass gateways, and you see 4 gas, that obvuiosly means double stargate all-in. Put 2 spores at your main and your third, and then add-on as he reveals his air fleet. Defend, get corruptors, then mass ling/bane and win. Or whatever, once you hold the all-in you can do whatever you want. Just don't make hydras to defend, and you aren't making corruptors to defend, you are making them to push him back. You need to defend with spores. Once it gets going, you really need about 3-5 spores per base to deal with double stargate. But even if he kills your third, you will be ahead of protoss still, so, just keep in mind as long as you keep all 3 of your bases, you'll be fine. Thanks for the info. Just so you know, I don't all-in. At all. Ever. The series of posts you replied to was from my asking for harassment options without all-inning (or crippling my econ). I was of the opinion there are none - which sucks, considering Zerg is, well, Zerg. It seems we're on the same page there. I hate ZvP with a passion. I just watched Dimaga utterly owning Mana(?) for 20 minutes today with incredible play, and then one barely wonky engagement and he loses. 5 or 6 base to 2 or 3 (only 2 mining if I recall). Just frustrating as hell. I do fantastic in ZvZ and ZvT but holy hell, I cannot figure out ZvP to save my life. I'll try your suggestions. Later upgrades, later lair, more focus on stopping that early attack then droning. We'll see how it goes  | ||
|
Vei
United States2845 Posts
 "You need to mass units to deny your fast third, then get lair once you've held off the opponent (lair tech will never arrive in time to use to any effect to defend, and you'll die if you go lair while going fast third), and then you use those same units to deny Protoss' third. If they go robo, then just go 3 base mass muta, get a fourth when safe and try to base trade if you can't kill outright. This kills deathball very well." nice, this is some veryy useful advice for me. i'm sure i find myself teching to lair too early/dying cluelessly. | ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
That is an awesome writeup belial.. How does 2 base blink-stalker all-ins change that? Can just roach with speed hold it? Do you need lings? Upgrade? Do you need infestors? Spines? Bleh. I hate blink all-ins. That's gotta be the hardest 2 base all-in to deal with, it's deceptive because they have gas at the natural so you think you are safe to drone up and go lair, but it's just as deadly as a 7 gate all-in. You just need masssss roach/ling, emphasis on lings. Probably use the 'extra time' it takes for blink to research, as a blink all-in will come slightly later than 7 gate or 6 gate+1, and get a macro hatch. It is definitely possible to hold though. You should not have lair up in time against it. You may be starting lair when the push comes out, but even if you went fast lair, and even if protoss didn't just straight up kill you for going lair too early, your roach speed or infestors or whatever lair tech won't be done in time to handle it. Generally, warp gate all-ins will kill any zerg who is attempting to go lair when going fast third. So be very careful when you go lair in zvp when going fast third, and make sure they opened tech like DT/SG or macro play before getting the lair. It's never bad to make 50 supply worth of roach/ling if you aren't sure what they are doing anyways, as you'll need those units to deny P's third. Just so you know, I don't all-in. At all. Ever. The series of posts you replied to was from my asking for harassment options without all-inning (or crippling my econ). I was of the opinion there are none - which sucks, considering Zerg is, well, Zerg. It seems we're on the same page there. Ah, I see. I misunderstood where you were coming from. Yea, I am of the mind that in general, harassment is not really good for zerg. If protoss or terran is turtling, there isn't much harassment you are going to do. Now if you go mutas, or baneling rain, sure, pester a bit with the mutas, or do a few baneling drops on the mineral lines. But if someone is being stubborn and just turtling hardcore, there is no way any amount of harassment is going to be effective against warp ins and someone just being super defensive. It's like trying to rob someone who has a gun pointed at you already. I hate ZvP with a passion. I just watched Dimaga utterly owning Mana(?) for 20 minutes today with incredible play, and then one barely wonky engagement and he loses. 5 or 6 base to 2 or 3 (only 2 mining if I recall). Just frustrating as hell. I do fantastic in ZvZ and ZvT but holy hell, I cannot figure out ZvP to save my life. Can you link the game? Dimaga has an extremely weird style of play, of what limited I've seen of him. From my experience as Zerg, besides horrible miscontrol of baneling rain style of play, zerg isn't really like that. It just feels like that, but in reality you were actually far behind in the game, or you did something beyond miscontrol and just mal-controlled (like when losira got vortexed in a GSL game, and then ran the rest of his broodlords intentionally into the archon toilet). ZvP is about the following, not unit compositions: - Zerg takes fast third before lair - Zerg defends Protoss aggression/harass opening - Zerg denies Protoss' Third with hatch tech roach/ling, and eventually speedroach/ling - Zerg uses both macro and tech advantage to kill a Protoss who took a late third. Depending on how successful of each stage you are (ie maybe you held the stargate, but lost 10 drones, so then protoss was able to get his third up uncontested because you couldnt make enough to deny it), the game rolls out one way or the other. The most popular way to play it is mutas. I don't think mutas are really that... umm, I don't know to say, great. Mutas are great at translating a macro lead into a win, I'll put it that way. If Protoss is on 2 base, then mutas wreck shit, but really, you've won the game anyways. If protoss gets the third later, then the game is even, and mutas do good if protoss goes robo, or opened stargate but then went colossi, or techs too fast to HT. I prefer roach/banelingrain/infestor, because it's also good against robo builds but also good against thirds and stargate openers and blink, I feel it's a bit 'safer', but I will go mutas about 40% of the time in ZvP. However, just about 90% of ZvPs are figured out by either Protoss' aggression either failing or not failing (particularly if it's all in like 6 gate, if it doesnt kill zerg then they just straight up lose the game), and Zerg's ability to deny the third or not. I will say figuring out when to get lair, is a bitch to figure out. Say Protoss goes 5 gate blink stalker from FFE into faster third - how the hell do you stop 5 gate blink stalkers from securing a third with just hatch tech roach/ling? Yea, it's kind of hard. If you go lair too late, your tech will be too far behind and your mutas, or infestors, or baneilng rain, or whatever, comes too late. If you go lair too early, simple warp gate aggression will kill you or protoss will take a super fast third uncontested. So, you know, eventually you'll figure it out, but figuring out lair timing is really hard. I'll say this though - you may have games where you don't straight up kill protoss when you could have if you went lair quicker, but you will never straight up die if you don't go lair until 120+ supply. So if you have a game where you just see it and go "Damn, if I had 20 mutas just a minute earlier I would've won, I knew I was safe to go lair when I saw that third gas and no forge spinning!" don't worry, just expand, and be confident by taking your fourth when P takes their third, and win later in the game. As a side note, don't tech up too quickly. So you get lair - that just means a good scout with an overseer, and roach speed. If you try to rush infestors or mutas or hive or whatever too quickly, you can still die to a more tech oriented push like stalker/immortal or mass blink stalker, so still, be careful. You can't really overmake roach/ling anyways, because even if protoss doesn't do some doom push (like that stupid 2 base colossi build lol), you'll need mass roach/ling to deny the protoss third. I can tell you for sure that mutas will never arrive in time to deny a protoss third. nice, this is some veryy useful advice for me. i'm sure i find myself teching to lair too early/dying cluelessly. Going lair before about 70 supply will actually cut your drone count by about 20. It's that dramatic. You also need to go lair for a reason - don't worry about detection or scouting, spores and overlords can do that just fine, and massing roach/ling makes you safe to any sort of push anyways. Rushing lair on a weak economy just means you can afford 5 mutas and only 5 mutas, and 5 mutas doesn't do shit. You really need 3 bases to support lair tech, so going lair too quickly (outside of cute 2 base timing attacks of course, like infestor spam) can cause you to straight up lose the game. It really knocks your econ pretty hard to go lair, nevermind the 150/100 cost, but that you need to take more gas geysers and mine from them to support lair tech, the spire and such have a high cost themselves, and the lair tech units on their own cost a lot as well. Getting 10 mutas costs what, about 1300/1300 ish? Then there's the 15 drones that aren't mining because of gas +3 per geyser? The spines you have to make to defend yourself while teching? It really cuts your econ. | ||
|
Vei
United States2845 Posts
I know in FFE games when coll are out usually i'm in my speedling/muta mode and can contain or base trade (usually successfully). | ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Against protoss you just want lots of roach/ling. If he's going stargate, more on the lings. When you've defended, from there you can go mutas, hyper aggressive roach/hydra (i dont like how far behind r/h leaves you on tech and when p gets a third, how bad of a spot you become in), rush hive for pure bl/infestor using infestors to defend for the time being, or my personal favorite, roach/banelingrain/infestor. Generally you'll need lots of speedroaches when lair finishes to deny third or if protoss makes more aggression. Roach/ling won't hold forever against immortals or blink and if you tech too quickly when lair finishes you can still die to 2 base protoss. You shouldn't be getting overrun by forcefields. When goin fast third, you should have so many units that forcefield won't do anything except let protoss hide in their base, scared, like a little girl. Try playing against computer with the build I outlined, you basically start making units 99% after 65 supply or 8:00 mark, which should be one and the same. Just deny protoss' third, get lair when you push back, then get roach speed. 2 base protoss then just basically starves and dies. If he finally gets his third up, that's when you may need more tech, but it's pretty hard for P to get their third up. If you are going mutas you never really fight, just base trade. Only fight if you know 100% you can crush him, like if he splits his army up. Composition isn't really that important in ZvP. You either go mutas, roach/banelingrain/infsetor, roach/hydra, roach/infestor, or hive tech, depending on what you scout from protoss and you like to play the game. But the most important battles of the game are on hatch tech roach/ling, maybe speedroach later on, in denying their third and securing your own. That's 95% of the game right there, rarely does the game come out even after those 2 stages (although it can, it definitely can). Watch your replays, and see if you could've denied P's third when you didn't, or how you could've held that aggression better. That's probably what needs most work really. Not just you, but all zergs. | ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
It can be very tempting to just make 20 more drones to saturate to 75 total and get 4, maybe even 6 gas, but you are completely relying on your 17+17+16 perfect maynarding on 3 base to get a better economy than a 2 base protoss who even may have more workers than you. You then have to make lots of roaches and lings to hold pressure, and then deny protoss' third, and even though it's extremely tempting to make those 20 extra drones, that's 40 lings you could have made, and that would deny P's third (or hold that pressure and kill him off). You have to deny that third, and you have to use roach/ling to do it. If you try to tech up to mutas/infestors, or even lair too quickly, it gives P a chance to grab his third and macro up, and a protoss who takes a third comfortably is extremely difficult to deal with. It's MUCH harder to deal with a 3 base protoss as a 5 base zerg with lair tech and 8 gas going and infestation pit done and infestors and hive, then it is to deal with a 2 base protoss when on only 50 drones, but on 3 bases, using roach/ling hatch tech. If you can delay that third, or just make it so protoss loses his entire army in the process of getting his third up, you are in a much better position. Because you can hold any 2 base protoss army with roach/ling and eventually speed, but to hold 3 base protoss, you need hive tech and a massive tech army. | ||
|
Parsnip
United States7 Posts
Just warning, I have been cheesed and all in'd all day so some of the games I didn't GG lol. Replay 1 Replay 2 Replay 3 | ||
|
PeanutsNJam
United States175 Posts
| ||
|
Asolmanx
Italy141 Posts
| ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
A good time to do a counterattack is when they try to secure their third, or any time their army is halfway across the map. If I see a terran trying to go for the gold on metal or XNC, then I will attack - either their undefended third, or their undefended third. It's a bit harder to counterattack protoss, except when going pure muta. In which case once you get 20+ mutas, always encourage a base trade. Any time he moves out, move your mutas in. If he commits, get ready with mass spines and hatches everywhere, if he pulls back, just pull back yourself. | ||
|
Asolmanx
Italy141 Posts
On December 24 2011 17:54 Belial88 wrote: When they are out of position, or when they are pushing their army far forward. If they try to contain you, run your lings or mutas behind to snipe rallied units, or run into his base. Morph banes at your natural, force him to take it slow, and fuck shit up, then when the banes you morphed can't hold anymore, bring everything back (or go for base trade if you can make it work). The only reason terran can't just kill zerg with 2 base rine/tank is because of counterattacks with mutas cutting off reinforcements, so then your army slowly gets bigger and bigger and then you bust out. If you don't cut off the reinforcements, then terran can just rally forever and continually have a larger army against your larger army, and win the game by starving you out. A good time to do a counterattack is when they try to secure their third, or any time their army is halfway across the map. If I see a terran trying to go for the gold on metal or XNC, then I will attack - either their undefended third, or their undefended third. It's a bit harder to counterattack protoss, except when going pure muta. In which case once you get 20+ mutas, always encourage a base trade. Any time he moves out, move your mutas in. If he commits, get ready with mass spines and hatches everywhere, if he pulls back, just pull back yourself. Wow, that was a fast and very good answer. I also have a lot of problems with the first marine push tank, and this actually helps me a ton. Thanks! On the same topic, i have a few more questions: How many zerglings should i commint to a counterattack? Also, when counterattacking his base, should i go for the worker line, or for the production facilities / tech? Should i bring banelings to maybe bust the main's wall (like supply depots)? How do i tell if it's better to cut reinforcements or go attack his base? Are spines viable to slow down a terran's push while i counterattack and take out his base? If they are, how should i place them? | ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
| ||
|
Goldbullet
United States88 Posts
On December 24 2011 14:34 Belial88 wrote: Bleh. I hate blink all-ins. That's gotta be the hardest 2 base all-in to deal with, it's deceptive because they have gas at the natural so you think you are safe to drone up and go lair, but it's just as deadly as a 7 gate all-in. You just need masssss roach/ling, emphasis on lings. Probably use the 'extra time' it takes for blink to research, as a blink all-in will come slightly later than 7 gate or 6 gate+1, and get a macro hatch. It is definitely possible to hold though. You should not have lair up in time against it. You may be starting lair when the push comes out, but even if you went fast lair, and even if protoss didn't just straight up kill you for going lair too early, your roach speed or infestors or whatever lair tech won't be done in time to handle it. Generally, warp gate all-ins will kill any zerg who is attempting to go lair when going fast third. So be very careful when you go lair in zvp when going fast third, and make sure they opened tech like DT/SG or macro play before getting the lair. It's never bad to make 50 supply worth of roach/ling if you aren't sure what they are doing anyways, as you'll need those units to deny P's third. Ah, I see. I misunderstood where you were coming from. Yea, I am of the mind that in general, harassment is not really good for zerg. If protoss or terran is turtling, there isn't much harassment you are going to do. Now if you go mutas, or baneling rain, sure, pester a bit with the mutas, or do a few baneling drops on the mineral lines. But if someone is being stubborn and just turtling hardcore, there is no way any amount of harassment is going to be effective against warp ins and someone just being super defensive. It's like trying to rob someone who has a gun pointed at you already. Can you link the game? Dimaga has an extremely weird style of play, of what limited I've seen of him. From my experience as Zerg, besides horrible miscontrol of baneling rain style of play, zerg isn't really like that. It just feels like that, but in reality you were actually far behind in the game, or you did something beyond miscontrol and just mal-controlled (like when losira got vortexed in a GSL game, and then ran the rest of his broodlords intentionally into the archon toilet). ZvP is about the following, not unit compositions: - Zerg takes fast third before lair - Zerg defends Protoss aggression/harass opening - Zerg denies Protoss' Third with hatch tech roach/ling, and eventually speedroach/ling - Zerg uses both macro and tech advantage to kill a Protoss who took a late third. Depending on how successful of each stage you are (ie maybe you held the stargate, but lost 10 drones, so then protoss was able to get his third up uncontested because you couldnt make enough to deny it), the game rolls out one way or the other. The most popular way to play it is mutas. I don't think mutas are really that... umm, I don't know to say, great. Mutas are great at translating a macro lead into a win, I'll put it that way. If Protoss is on 2 base, then mutas wreck shit, but really, you've won the game anyways. If protoss gets the third later, then the game is even, and mutas do good if protoss goes robo, or opened stargate but then went colossi, or techs too fast to HT. I prefer roach/banelingrain/infestor, because it's also good against robo builds but also good against thirds and stargate openers and blink, I feel it's a bit 'safer', but I will go mutas about 40% of the time in ZvP. However, just about 90% of ZvPs are figured out by either Protoss' aggression either failing or not failing (particularly if it's all in like 6 gate, if it doesnt kill zerg then they just straight up lose the game), and Zerg's ability to deny the third or not. I will say figuring out when to get lair, is a bitch to figure out. Say Protoss goes 5 gate blink stalker from FFE into faster third - how the hell do you stop 5 gate blink stalkers from securing a third with just hatch tech roach/ling? Yea, it's kind of hard. If you go lair too late, your tech will be too far behind and your mutas, or infestors, or baneilng rain, or whatever, comes too late. If you go lair too early, simple warp gate aggression will kill you or protoss will take a super fast third uncontested. So, you know, eventually you'll figure it out, but figuring out lair timing is really hard. I'll say this though - you may have games where you don't straight up kill protoss when you could have if you went lair quicker, but you will never straight up die if you don't go lair until 120+ supply. So if you have a game where you just see it and go "Damn, if I had 20 mutas just a minute earlier I would've won, I knew I was safe to go lair when I saw that third gas and no forge spinning!" don't worry, just expand, and be confident by taking your fourth when P takes their third, and win later in the game. As a side note, don't tech up too quickly. So you get lair - that just means a good scout with an overseer, and roach speed. If you try to rush infestors or mutas or hive or whatever too quickly, you can still die to a more tech oriented push like stalker/immortal or mass blink stalker, so still, be careful. You can't really overmake roach/ling anyways, because even if protoss doesn't do some doom push (like that stupid 2 base colossi build lol), you'll need mass roach/ling to deny the protoss third. I can tell you for sure that mutas will never arrive in time to deny a protoss third. Going lair before about 70 supply will actually cut your drone count by about 20. It's that dramatic. You also need to go lair for a reason - don't worry about detection or scouting, spores and overlords can do that just fine, and massing roach/ling makes you safe to any sort of push anyways. Rushing lair on a weak economy just means you can afford 5 mutas and only 5 mutas, and 5 mutas doesn't do shit. You really need 3 bases to support lair tech, so going lair too quickly (outside of cute 2 base timing attacks of course, like infestor spam) can cause you to straight up lose the game. It really knocks your econ pretty hard to go lair, nevermind the 150/100 cost, but that you need to take more gas geysers and mine from them to support lair tech, the spire and such have a high cost themselves, and the lair tech units on their own cost a lot as well. Getting 10 mutas costs what, about 1300/1300 ish? Then there's the 15 drones that aren't mining because of gas +3 per geyser? The spines you have to make to defend yourself while teching? It really cuts your econ. Huge thanks to Belial88 for answering my question. This has helped a lot and I appreciate the spectacular write-up! And reading more posts by Belial is helping my game play so once again ENORMOUS thanks for helping me out!! :DD | ||
|
Guamshin
Netherlands295 Posts
Alot of players who do this use the actual 0 key for selecting all hatcheries and mainly use the individual hatcheries to produce stuff, but i have also seen players who are only selecting the 0 key, which means they use something else(not the 0 key) instead. I would like to use this kind of setup too but does anybody know a good button to change the 0 key to? | ||
|
Host-
New Zealand459 Posts
On December 25 2011 03:43 Guamshin wrote: I have seen alot of korean zergs that control group their hatcheries from 5, 6, 7, 8 9(or 4 5 6 7 8 etc) and then all hatcheries to 0. Alot of players who do this use the actual 0 key for selecting all hatcheries and mainly use the individual hatcheries to produce stuff, but i have also seen players who are only selecting the 0 key, which means they use something else(not the 0 key) instead. I would like to use this kind of setup too but does anybody know a good button to change the 0 key to? I personally have it hotkeyed to "Space", not all of my hatches though, just 1 to check on injects basically. | ||
|
llKenZyll
United States853 Posts
On December 24 2011 13:59 Vei wrote: what is the proper response to a sentry expand build? i lose vs them 100% of the time "You need to mass units to deny your fast third, then get lair once you've held off the opponent (lair tech will never arrive in time to use to any effect to defend, and you'll die if you go lair while going fast third), and then you use those same units to deny Protoss' third. If they go robo, then just go 3 base mass muta, get a fourth when safe and try to base trade if you can't kill outright. This kills deathball very well." nice, this is some veryy useful advice for me. i'm sure i find myself teching to lair too early/dying cluelessly. You take a third when they take their natural. Go lings to deny any pressure, its better than roaches. | ||
|
Merl
United States9 Posts
I'm silver by the way. | ||
| ||
