EPTThe Zerg Help Me Thread - Page 140
| 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. | ||
|
arena_say_what
122 Posts
| ||
|
Asolmanx
Italy141 Posts
On January 02 2012 07:35 arena_say_what wrote: Having some problems in ZvT where T goes reactor hellion expand or just heavy reactor hellions (6+ hellions) maurader off one base and I don't understand how to defend it properly. Are you suppost to wall off with evo chambers and just mass spinecrawler queen and also just neglect gas because hellions just rape lings. Maybe it's a problem of scouting but when you get your initial lings and you see the factory swapping for reactor you then surrender map control and you have no idea what's comming, you try send in an overlord it gets killed by marines. At this moment im thinking wtf is going - hellion marauder allin? double port banshee? thor rush? This whole process fucks me up and i either over drone too hard, or mass produce lings and I just don't understand the timings of early game ZvT I'm only diamond zerg, but i think i can help about this issue. First of all, when you see a reactored hellion, you need to send in an overlord to see his follow up. It could be an expansion, it could be banshee, could be mediavac, could be marauders. I am not sure about the exact timing, but i think that if you send it at around 5 minutes, you should be able to tell if he is expanding or not. If you see marauder hellion all in, i suggesto to build spines and banelings to defend it, and don't be afraid to make something like 4-5 spines that's what it takes to hold. Try to blow the banelings on the hellions and clear the rest with lings. If you can wall with evos, do it: it helps a lot, expecially when you have banelings. Since the scouting seems to be your main problem, remember that when you scout, you should send your overlord looking for a command center, towards the edge of his base near the natural. If you can't tell what he is doing, you need blind spore and queens, a lot. Queens and Banelings both don't take bonus damage from either hellions or marauder, also queens kill mediavacs and banshees. If you see no expo, i think that it is safe to say that more queens can't hurt you. Still, i'm just a diamond, i may be totally worng, and if i am i am sorry for misleading. Still, hope this helps somehow, as it works for me | ||
|
Rabo
United States40 Posts
On January 02 2012 07:35 arena_say_what wrote: Having some problems in ZvT where T goes reactor hellion expand or just heavy reactor hellions (6+ hellions) maurader off one base and I don't understand how to defend it properly. Are you suppost to wall off with evo chambers and just mass spinecrawler queen and also just neglect gas because hellions just rape lings. Maybe it's a problem of scouting but when you get your initial lings and you see the factory swapping for reactor you then surrender map control and you have no idea what's comming, you try send in an overlord it gets killed by marines. At this moment im thinking wtf is going - hellion marauder allin? double port banshee? thor rush? This whole process fucks me up and i either over drone too hard, or mass produce lings and I just don't understand the timings of early game ZvT Sometimes, you can scout a command center building in the terran's main with lings before the first couple hellions spawn. In that case, you know that he's going a reactor hellion expand or double expand, which makes you safe from pretty much all 1 base all-ins. Any banshee play, thor rush, etc. will be somewhat delayed. He can still do a relatively quick drop though with 1-2 medivacs. If you don't scout the obvious cc, the best way I find is to keep an overlord behind the terran natural. This isn't always possible, but it's the single best way to see if the terran is going one base all-in or not. If you don't see a command center at the natural by 6:30ish, then be cautious. He might not be going all-in necessarily, but it's likely that he delayed his cc for some additional tech. There are a couple of ways to defend against early reactored hellions. Most people generally use queens, spines, and simcity to defend, and that is fine against <6 hellions. It's also fine against even more hellions on maps where you can completely wall with a queen + spines/evo/macro hatch (i.e. shakuras plateau). However, when I see lots of hellions, I'm normally thinking either some sort of hellion heavy all-in (e.g. marauder/hellion all-in), blue flame, drops with or without blue flame, or transition to mech. In all those cases, lings are pretty useless, so I tend to go roaches. You might be able to get mutas out in time while holding out with lots of spine crawlers/lings/blings, but maybe not. Having said that, some people open roaches even against a small number of hellions because you are able to pressure them back and delay their expansion, as well as secure your third before lair. I think this is somewhat weak to a 1 base banshee followup. Early roaches are also helpful if you plan to do a roach/ling bust. Honestly, without roaches, you can't really push out against hellions until lair. You can build lots of lings, but that many lings is still coin-flippy because a good terran can kite hellions, and you won't have a cost-efficient trade. Also, if he happened to go blue flame or is hiding 10 more hellions in his base, he has a huge advantage. I find that in many ZvTs, unless I can hide some lings out in the maps before his hellions start camping my front door, I don't really have any idea what he's doing until I've finished lair. Many times I've shown up at his base with mutas only to find 4 factories because he didn't do anything with his hellions to indicate that he's going mech. I can usually scout the fact that he has expanded, but that's about it. I always make an evo chamber pretty early for simcity, and if I don't see an expansion by 6:30ish, I'll make a couple spores to deal with banshees, as well as get extra queens to defend against banshees, drops, and in general for transfusion. I also try to sacrifice an overlord, but a good terran can deny overlord scouting pretty easily. ZvT early game is just really tough if terran is really committed to keeping you in the dark. As IdrA said, "no amount of creativity is going to get a zergling past a wall or an overlord past a marine". | ||
|
Purpley
16 Posts
Or is 2 base muta/all ins better? | ||
|
Rabo
United States40 Posts
| ||
|
Unspecified
16 Posts
Aside from using my main army to deal with it, what can I do? | ||
|
Rabo
United States40 Posts
| ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Obviously, overlord speed and spread is crucial too. By end game you should have vision of literally the enitre map with no more than overlord range between any 2 overloords. | ||
|
Unspecified
16 Posts
Thanks again. | ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
| ||
|
Hetz
196 Posts
Question: On shattered temple ZvP. What to do with a FFE protoss on this map? Going a fast 3rd myself is hard because of rocks. Or should I take a 3rd far away. Other then this all I can think of is a roach-lings allin. Just playing 'standard' 2 vs 2 base isn't working if the toss is diamond or up. | ||
|
InChaoS
Sweden40 Posts
| ||
|
HyperionDreamer
Canada1528 Posts
On January 01 2012 21:40 Belial88 wrote: You are 2 base vs 2 base. You are behind the Toss. I can hold any protoss aggression on 2 base, that's not the issue. I'm just asking about how to stay even with Toss, which requires getting a third. And people already know how to hold 6-7 gate all-ins when going fast third, why would you want to go 2 base lair. Making a completely concrete statement like that isn't correct. It depends on tech, worker counts, and a crapload of other things that are not worth mentioning. You are in masters so I know you understand this, but I agree that if you assume equal worker counts on 2 base you're way behind. My problem/question, is how to take a third against 1/3 gate expands, and survive his opening 3 gate zealot/sentry pressure. I have a difficult time figuring out when to take my third against 1/3gate expands, and when to make units. Do I make units, then take the third? Or do I take the third, then make units 100%? Once I've taken the third, any sort of 2 base all-in protoss attempts to do is rather easy to hold off. Against a 1 gate expand you can take it off speedling only, assuming you opened some variant of gas/pool/hatch in that order, but generally if you directly see 1 gate nexus you can immediately take a third hatchery without requiring any extra tech to defend it. Against 3 gate expand you can't take it immediately because you'll die (obvious), but you can take it on speedling/slow roach tech on favourable maps. I can't tell you "put down hatchery at X minutes Y seconds with Z food count", but if you want to take a third base on hatchery tech, then you'll need to get roaches to do so. You get your initial lings to control the map, take the third (delaying your second queen helps this go faster) and then make units if you need to. I think you may be playing at a lower level, but any sort of 6-7 gate all-in can be held off quite easily when going fast third. If you are going 2 base lair against it, it means you are behind - Toss can just 7 gate you, keep you stuck on 2 bases, then take his third. Sure, maybe you don't die, but then Toss gets his third up earlier, or let's just say he even just takes it the same time as you do. Not a good position at all. You aren't 'surviving' 7 gate all-ins if toss can prevent you from taking your third. I'm also in masters. How on earth do you manage to hold off 7 gate allins (some of them have +1) easily on hatchery tech when you've gone for fast 3 bases? Do you have any replays of this, cause I think there'd be a lot of people who would want to figure out how to do that. 7 gate +1 off FFE is literally the reason I thumbed down TalDarim on the ladder, it's so incredibly hard to counter without staying on 2 bases and getting roach speed/burrow. Also, if protoss is expanding behind the attack, it's by definition not "all-in". I know this sounds nit-picky, but it's a fundamental distinction between a huge gateway unit mass attack on 2 base, and a gateway unit attack on 2 base into making a third nexus. | ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Plat zerg here. Question: On shattered temple ZvP. What to do with a FFE protoss on this map? Going a fast 3rd myself is hard because of rocks. Or should I take a 3rd far away. Other then this all I can think of is a roach-lings allin. Just playing 'standard' 2 vs 2 base isn't working if the toss is diamond or up. Veto. It is total bullshit you can't take a third, while Toss not only can FFE, but get his third for free as well. Fucking toss can get third before you. imo, FFE is impossibly strong on that map. However, roach/ling all-ins are semi-decent, as are spinecrawler rushes, if you are okay all-inning every time on that map. i am a diamond zerg and i dont likes too go ling/bling/muta. when i goes into roaches, should i go roach, ling, bling or roach infestor vs standard marine tank. Play a different race... There are 3 viable styles in ZvT atm. 1. Ling/Bane/Muta. Not gimmicky, most solid. 2. Heavy Ling, no gas, fast hive. Stephano makes this work, really gimmicky, requires you to outplay your opponent with counterattacks. Only good if you can multitask and split zerglings like a GM. 3. Ling/Infestor into fast hive. Gimmicky, susceptible to being build countered, crushes bad terrans who don't make siege tanks, gets owned by 2 base mech/aggressive mech and masters+ terrans who realize that siege tanks are good units. I've never seen this work at the tournament level for much more than a game or two in a series to 'change up the pace' (like mvp going mech sometimes in tvz, which is rare, but he does it sometimes). And that's being optimistic about it too. But roaches... unless you are playing mech... no way. But, I mean, masters is pretty easy to get to, if you can macro well, you can get to masters with roach/infestor into fast BL. But ling/bane/muta is the most 'solid' way to play tvz. Making a completely concrete statement like that isn't correct. It depends on tech, worker counts, and a crapload of other things that are not worth mentioning. You are in masters so I know you understand this, but I agree that if you assume equal worker counts on 2 base you're way behind. 2 base Zerg vs 2 base Protoss, Zerg will be behind if no losses or mistakes have occurred. Against 3 gate sentry expand, speedling pressure never works, and even if you force a cancel, it hurts your drone count so much that you end up behind. Against 1 gate expand, it's okay because you only make 14 lings, but if you overmake lings and they then add the 3 gates and eventually get expo, you are behind. Obviously things can happen, but 2 base vs 2 base, in a normal game where no losses occurred, Zerg is losing. He has to do damage or he becomes behind, either with his lairtech, or with roach/ling. Against a 1 gate expand you can take it off speedling only, assuming you opened some variant of gas/pool/hatch in that order, but generally if you directly see 1 gate nexus you can immediately take a third hatchery without requiring any extra tech to defend it. Against 3 gate expand you can't take it immediately because you'll die (obvious), but you can take it on speedling/slow roach tech on favourable maps. I can't tell you "put down hatchery at X minutes Y seconds with Z food count", but if you want to take a third base on hatchery tech, then you'll need to get roaches to do so. You get your initial lings to control the map, take the third (delaying your second queen helps this go faster) and then make units if you need to. Thank you. This is extremely useful. So against 1 gate expands, maybe I should make 1 larva inject of lings, force a cancel, then take my third right? Then drone up a bit, then defend with roach/ling and tech up while defending. Or do you think it's a choice of EITHER force a cancel if you opened gas, OR take third? Against 3 gate expand, I find that I generally die to 3 gate pressure with roach/ling defense if I start units as 'late' as 45 supply, so I guess you should take the third, then make units around 35-40? Thanks though. I guess it's somethign I'll figure out in play. How on earth do you manage to hold off 7 gate allins (some of them have +1) easily on hatchery tech when you've gone for fast 3 bases? Do you have any replays of this, cause I think there'd be a lot of people who would want to figure out how to do that. 7 gate +1 off FFE is literally the reason I thumbed down TalDarim on the ladder, it's so incredibly hard to counter without staying on 2 bases and getting roach speed/burrow. Watch this, it's a 7 gate. By the way, anything more than 6 gate +1, or plain 7 gates (ie 8 gate, 7 gate+1, etc), just delays the attack or means macro is bad and not full production of units. The attack pushes out at 8:30 and hits about 8:45. http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors4/vod/65777 Here's the basic build order of fast third: Gasless, send 3 overlords to Toss base, and one of them MUST be by their natural's gas 30-34 Third, 1 Gas 6:50-7:00 Evo 7:00-7:30 Roach Warren, 2nd gas, Sac 2 overlords. If it's empty inside, it's stargate, double stargate if 4 fast gas. If no gas and later third gas, means usually macro play and usually stargate into 4 gate total or robo into 4 gate total (so adds 3 gates after star/robo). Can be DT. 4 fast gas means clearly double stargate, although possibly DT. If you see no gas ever, it means 6 gate+1 or 7 gate all-in. If you see 3-4 gas and gateways, usually means blink or gateway/robo aggression. 4 gas with gateways in main usually means some sort of tech, like stargate/gateway allin maybe, blink/dt, or shitton of sentries. 8:00 = 65 supply (if not, work on macro, a single overlord made too early or blocked fucks this up!) Make 100% units if no gas. Otherwise, drone up to 9:00 and get lair and then units. Don't get any upgrades because they never finish in time against gateway all-ins (they finish more than 3 minutes after planting evo, so 10:00 is later than you being dead at 9:00). Get them when safe, get gas asap. I don't have any replays saved of it, but I've held it off on my own plenty of times. You basically just go to 100% unit production at 8:00 if you see no gas at natural. You slowly add drones, macro hatch, and lair as you push him back. He'll probably end up mining out, but if he tries to expand or something you'll just completely overrun him. Also, if protoss is expanding behind the attack, it's by definition not "all-in". I know this sounds nit-picky, but it's a fundamental distinction between a huge gateway unit mass attack on 2 base, and a gateway unit attack on 2 base into making a third nexus. Like a 7 gate with no gas at natural, cut probes, and he takes his nexus??? This makes no sense. Why would you cut probes if you are expanding. If you don't cut probes, you can't push at 8:30 but instead push at 10:00, and a 10:00 7 gate is like an 8:00 4 gate, it's just a joke. You just overwhelm him with roach/ling, or you can go the other route and just outmacro the fuck out of him. If he doesn't produce 100% from his cut probe 7 gate, you will overrun him, or just macro wayyy over him because he cut so many probes and has no tech. | ||
|
Amestir
Netherlands2126 Posts
I open speedling expand, and then just kinda go roaches. Lately I have been trying to pressure early a bit with 8 roaches or so. My main problem is that I lack a game plan, I have no clue what to do. Also I feel that I don't know the counters to some Protoss armies. If you could help me with some overall game plans and the counters to the following armies: Stalker / Zealot / Colossus Blink stalker Gateway + immortal Tyvm in advance :D | ||
|
arena_say_what
122 Posts
| ||
|
Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Lately I have been trying to pressure early a bit with 8 roaches or so. Okay do this test: 1. Play against AI, and go speedling expand and make 8 roaches like you normally do. 2. Open gasless (or speedling expand is fine too) and don't even make a roach warren. At.. oh, I don't know, 8:00, count your supply and drone count. It'll be about 20 drones lost. That's why you are losing. Try to avoid making roaches until lairtech or to secure your third, which should be after 50ish supply - and that goes for all the match-ups. Roaches absolutely sac your econ. That's why in lower levels like bronze, 1 base roach is good because people don't macro anyways, but higher up, people take advantage of roaches by just droning up and then putting spines up when you move out, ez. Once your macro falls in place, the rest should follow quite easily. Composition isn't really important in PvZ, it's extremely macro based (when do you take third, when he takes third, both of you using lower tech units to play more macro oriented, etc). Basically, roach/ling hatch tech will hold any 2 base protoss opening (with spores), once P is on 3 base or is just turtling 2 base, go ling/muta, roach/banelingrain/infestor, roach/hydra (hard to pull off at lower levels imo), roach/infestor. ZvP is about droning up and being aggressive/defensive at the right times with roach/ling, speedroaches, and then lair tech of choice. | ||
|
Asolmanx
Italy141 Posts
Is making a spore in evey mineral line to help against drops viable? is it a bad idea? is it worth it? | ||
|
Rabo
United States40 Posts
Against blink stalkers, infestors are good, but you may not get them in time. Roach/ling is a good way to play against blink stalkers on hatch tech. You want to be heavy on the lings, because pure roaches are bad against blink stalkers. Gateway + immortal is very weak to hydras, so you can go hydra/ling. You might not be able to get hydras in time, so you can go pure lings, or if you're larvae starved, roach/ling as you tech to hydras. When the number of immortals is low, roaches are fine. You should just try to focus fire them at the beginning of battles. High templar forces you to go roaches because everything else that zerg has before hive tech is bad against templars. But high templars take quite a while to tech, and if the protoss is going 2 base high templar, that should give you a lot of time to macro. When you get to hive, you can go brood lords or ultras, although I don't have much experience playing against a protoss who skips robo tech and goes straight to high templars, except when I go mutas. Even then, it's 3 base rather than 2 base high templar. | ||
|
Tobberoth
Sweden6375 Posts
On January 02 2012 22:37 Amestir wrote: Gold Zerg here. My Zvz is good, my ZvT is great but I feel completely lost in ZvP. I open speedling expand, and then just kinda go roaches. Lately I have been trying to pressure early a bit with 8 roaches or so. My main problem is that I lack a game plan, I have no clue what to do. Also I feel that I don't know the counters to some Protoss armies. If you could help me with some overall game plans and the counters to the following armies: Stalker / Zealot / Colossus Blink stalker Gateway + immortal Tyvm in advance :D My personal thoughts at the moment about those compositions: S/Z/C -> You seem to be going roach/ling, your only option is to add corrupters unless you can just outmacro your opponent immensly, collossus is extremely strong against roach/ling. Add 3-4 corruptors for each colossus on the field and he'll get destroyed. Blink -> Honestly, I don't know. Infestors help, but it's quite hard to fight well microed blink stalkers. Gateway + immortal -> Immortals are only really good against roaches, so lower your amount of roaches and add something else. Mutas are of course amazing against immortals, lings pwn them, hydras destroy them. I would say that transitioning from ling/roach to ling/muta is a great idea if you see immortals. | ||
| ||
