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On February 07 2012 08:47 TheRabidDeer wrote: How does zerg kill a PF without losing a huge amount of units? I am talking one with like 4-5 turrets too. I am having issues against terrans that slow push to the edge of your creep, siege up and force lings to run through the gauntlet. I will beat the push, but he has expanded to another base with a new PF behind it and I dont have enough to kill it. I also dont have enough to push towards his main because of a low-ground wall with depots and a bunker.
Basically, how does zerg beat a terran that is patient and defends well and is able to drop you whenever you are away from a base. I can hold off every push no problem, but I am never able to push out and grab another base without becoming even more vulnerable to drops. Spines dont kill marines with some upgrades, they just delay.
If the PF's cannon is aimed at your units, 24 banelings. If it's looking away, 19 banelings. So basically make 30 and go kill the fucker, as that will allow you to take out the scvs aswell.
throwing away 1200/600 in army is the best answer for that situation? Is that really a good idea given modern terran playstyles?
Well if it's surrounded by Turrets and the like thats pretty much the most cost efficient method to do it really. In theory you can kill it with upgraded lings, but I have no idea how many it takes, and you have to catch him off guard to get a full surround of the PF before he can repair it. If your lings are unsuccessful, then he just repairs it and you've lost ALOT of resources for no gain whatsoever. I mean once your on BL/Festor end game comp, then you can kill it a lot easier, but I feel as though your talking about the mid game -> late game not pure late game, so it's unlikely that against a bio tank unit comp, that'll you'll have a decent amount of BL's out in time.
Denying toss thirds using roaches/lings - Do you just all out commit to it once you max out on roach/ling? I find i keep getting crushed by forcefields even in relatively wide chokes (metalopolis etc).
On February 07 2012 16:18 Bearwidme wrote: Denying toss thirds using roaches/lings - Do you just all out commit to it once you max out on roach/ling? I find i keep getting crushed by forcefields even in relatively wide chokes (metalopolis etc).
If the toss uses FF correctly you will never be able to really break him with just Roach/ling unless he's being super greedy or mis force fields. Roach/ling and maxing out on it is a bad idea as their weak units and the longer the game goes on the weaker the composition becomes.
On February 07 2012 16:18 Bearwidme wrote: Denying toss thirds using roaches/lings - Do you just all out commit to it once you max out on roach/ling? I find i keep getting crushed by forcefields even in relatively wide chokes (metalopolis etc).
my 2 cent opinion:
I don't think you should max on roaches lings, even when you are in 3 base zerg vs 2 base protoss situation... precisely for this reason: what do you do when getting max? I would rather apply reasonable pressure on the potential protoss third, while slowly teching to get more harass potential... but do not necessarily try to deny the third at any cost! you can basically allow protoss having his third if at the same time, you got yourself mutas, because then you will have three targets to harass, and him having his nexus up doesn't mean he will exploit it. Protoss having 3 bases mean you can make 2 pronged ground attacks + mutas in main for instance. (against 2 base protoss, i would make corruptors instead of mutas, when it's a colossi push). Against forcefields, you quite need to engage from multiples angles... that really helps! So split your army, and be ready to send your multiples groups all at once. Also, you may have the impression that your fight went wrong, but zerg can exchange slightly inefficiently against protoss and still be ahead (actually this is often even required against 2 base protoss!) . so don't wait to be maxed to engage (although in the case of a 2 base protoss, this can be unavoidable) and go for the fight!
On February 07 2012 16:18 Bearwidme wrote: Denying toss thirds using roaches/lings - Do you just all out commit to it once you max out on roach/ling? I find i keep getting crushed by forcefields even in relatively wide chokes (metalopolis etc).
Yep, I get maxed out by around the 12 min mark ideally, and keep wearing them down. They can't force field forever, and if they miss their FF's you win. The most important thing about this is that you Tech and Expand behind this, even if it means cutting some units.
On February 07 2012 16:18 Bearwidme wrote: Denying toss thirds using roaches/lings - Do you just all out commit to it once you max out on roach/ling? I find i keep getting crushed by forcefields even in relatively wide chokes (metalopolis etc).
When you max out on roach/ling, your primary goal should be to force engagements and trade units cost effectively instead of trying to deny the third at all costs. A protoss death balls strength increases exponentially the more units he has. Try to keep his unit count low, most protoss won't move out until they have 150+ in army value.
When he takes his third, take a 4th and a 5th and keep trading units with him. Hopefully he'll mine out his main before he can create a death ball.
The key to aggressive roach/ling mid-game is positioning. Don't attack straight into force fields. On metalopolis for example, you can position your units between his natural and his 3rd and attack wherever his units are not, and at the same time attack his 3rd from the other ramp.
masters ZvT scouting question: I find myself often playing against reactor hellion, and the specific variant where terran makes 8-10 hellions before putting the barracks back on the reactor. This gives terran pretty much uncontested map control since properly controlled hellions just eat zerglings for lunch. And behind this I've played against pretty much every terran transition on the face of the earth, from ridiculously economic (one guy went up to 4 cc's before making another production structure) to ridiculously allin (2fact blue flame + marauder on one base, 2port cloak, etc etc) and everything in between. My question is how do I scout when map control firmly belongs to terran?
Zerg doesn't really have an opening that's good against everything, and there should be some way to scout the allin stuff. Some people have just told me to make 2 rounds of lings and kill the hellions, but that goes against every traditional concept of playing zerg (making drones early, defending until you get mutas for map control, etc). Plus, even if you can get control back, now you've got 20 useless lings that are just sitting at watchtowers.
On February 08 2012 11:45 HyperionDreamer wrote: masters ZvT scouting question: I find myself often playing against reactor hellion, and the specific variant where terran makes 8-10 hellions before putting the barracks back on the reactor. This gives terran pretty much uncontested map control since properly controlled hellions just eat zerglings for lunch. And behind this I've played against pretty much every terran transition on the face of the earth, from ridiculously economic (one guy went up to 4 cc's before making another production structure) to ridiculously allin (2fact blue flame + marauder on one base, 2port cloak, etc etc) and everything in between. My question is how do I scout when map control firmly belongs to terran?
Zerg doesn't really have an opening that's good against everything, and there should be some way to scout the allin stuff. Some people have just told me to make 2 rounds of lings and kill the hellions, but that goes against every traditional concept of playing zerg (making drones early, defending until you get mutas for map control, etc). Plus, even if you can get control back, now you've got 20 useless lings that are just sitting at watchtowers.
Tips for scouting?
Well you basically need an overlord in position, on some maps thats a lot easier said than done. One thing that I', also starting to do is hide lings relatively close to the Terrans base to sneak them in. Basically if you don't see an expo you have to prepare for an all in and try and rule out as many as possible.
Overlords don't really scout early game much.... You need overlord speed to make them useful at all, since most terrans keep lings around the edges of their bases. The allin stuff is not as concerning to me cause it's just like "if you see expo the game continues, if you don't then just make units forever", it's more the super economic stuff and the midgame tech that bothers me.
On February 08 2012 12:12 HyperionDreamer wrote: Overlords don't really scout early game much.... You need overlord speed to make them useful at all, since most terrans keep lings around the edges of their bases. The allin stuff is not as concerning to me cause it's just like "if you see expo the game continues, if you don't then just make units forever", it's more the super economic stuff and the midgame tech that bothers me.
I disagree completely. If you send an overlord into their base at around the 6 min mark, their game plan unfolds before your eyes. If you don't use an overlord to scout around that point or atleast have lings trying to dart up his ramp then you deserve to be all inned every single game for being too stubborn along with having bad scouting.
I think your underestimating how important an overlord scout can be. You can get lucky and actually find a piece of tech such as a starport with a techlab, which 9/10 times will mean banshees with or without cloak. I believe Day9 has said something along the lines of "you have to rule out what they can't be doing" -> something like that, so for example if you see the guy's on only 1 gas and you don't see an expo in his base or in his nat, it's likely a marauder hellion all in, or something to that affect is coming your way.
Also, if they have marines around their perimeter then your ling at their front door is more likely to get some nice scouting info.
I'm not really sure what you mean by the super economic stuff. Once you see an expo you should feel free to drone up a lot and attempt to take a 3rd, if not, you should be making units..
On February 08 2012 11:45 HyperionDreamer wrote: masters ZvT scouting question: I find myself often playing against reactor hellion, and the specific variant where terran makes 8-10 hellions before putting the barracks back on the reactor. This gives terran pretty much uncontested map control since properly controlled hellions just eat zerglings for lunch. And behind this I've played against pretty much every terran transition on the face of the earth, from ridiculously economic (one guy went up to 4 cc's before making another production structure) to ridiculously allin (2fact blue flame + marauder on one base, 2port cloak, etc etc) and everything in between. My question is how do I scout when map control firmly belongs to terran?
Zerg doesn't really have an opening that's good against everything, and there should be some way to scout the allin stuff. Some people have just told me to make 2 rounds of lings and kill the hellions, but that goes against every traditional concept of playing zerg (making drones early, defending until you get mutas for map control, etc). Plus, even if you can get control back, now you've got 20 useless lings that are just sitting at watchtowers.
Tips for scouting?
Hi there I have an opener I do in zvt specifically to gain map control back no matter how many hellions he makes.
I have never liked getting a ton of lings myself early game I feel its to larva inneficient and if the terran pays attention to his hellions you should never kill them and have to waste a lot of lings in the hopes of catching him when he's not looking. The method I do is good vs all that and you should always plop down an evo at some time so you can throw spores if you see banshees and you are not yet lair.
That's just my way obviously there are people who dislike the build and the people who love it. I like it a lot because i can see marauder/hellion all ins from a mile away and be able to make the appropriate amount of roach/ling to hold it off and you can even go to the natural of the terran if he was possibly to greedy or see if he expanded. If he didn't then you obviously should prepare for everything cloaked banshee/marauder/hellion (by prepare I mean dont' make a thousand roach/ling units just because it might be just don't use all your larva at once until you see his expansion).
Sacrificing an overlord at key points when your roaches are bothering him is smart to, to keep him distracted .
On February 08 2012 12:12 HyperionDreamer wrote: Overlords don't really scout early game much.... You need overlord speed to make them useful at all, since most terrans keep lings around the edges of their bases. The allin stuff is not as concerning to me cause it's just like "if you see expo the game continues, if you don't then just make units forever", it's more the super economic stuff and the midgame tech that bothers me.
I disagree completely. If you send an overlord into their base at around the 6 min mark, their game plan unfolds before your eyes. If you don't use an overlord to scout around that point or atleast have lings trying to dart up his ramp then you deserve to be all inned every single game for being too stubborn along with having bad scouting.
I think your underestimating how important an overlord scout can be. You can get lucky and actually find a piece of tech such as a starport with a techlab, which 9/10 times will mean banshees with or without cloak. I believe Day9 has said something along the lines of "you have to rule out what they can't be doing" -> something like that, so for example if you see the guy's on only 1 gas and you don't see an expo in his base or in his nat, it's likely a marauder hellion all in, or something to that affect is coming your way.
Also, if they have marines around their perimeter then your ling at their front door is more likely to get some nice scouting info.
I'm not really sure what you mean by the super economic stuff. Once you see an expo you should feel free to drone up a lot and attempt to take a 3rd, if not, you should be making units..
I have to disagree with this. Sure, on some maps you have a decent shot at spoting something but most of the time you're overlord gets shot down before seeing anyting. Basing you gameplan around such high risk tactics isn't worthwhile. There is a reason most pro zergs have stoped suiciding overlords because a good opponent will always have marines on the perimeter if possible. Hiding some zerglings on the map to see if he expands or moves out imo is way more reliable but even then there is still some luck involved.
On February 08 2012 12:25 Host- wrote: I disagree completely. If you send an overlord into their base at around the 6 min mark, their game plan unfolds before your eyes. If you don't use an overlord to scout around that point or atleast have lings trying to dart up his ramp then you deserve to be all inned every single game for being too stubborn along with having bad scouting.
I think your underestimating how important an overlord scout can be. You can get lucky and actually find a piece of tech such as a starport with a techlab, which 9/10 times will mean banshees with or without cloak. I believe Day9 has said something along the lines of "you have to rule out what they can't be doing" -> something like that, so for example if you see the guy's on only 1 gas and you don't see an expo in his base or in his nat, it's likely a marauder hellion all in, or something to that affect is coming your way.
Also, if they have marines around their perimeter then your ling at their front door is more likely to get some nice scouting info.
I'm not really sure what you mean by the super economic stuff. Once you see an expo you should feel free to drone up a lot and attempt to take a 3rd, if not, you should be making units..
I don't know what terrans you play against, but I wish I got to play these guys who don't leave marines around the perimeter to deny scouting. Yeah, I completely agree that a lucky overlord scout can reveal his whole tech path, but the operative word in that sentence is lucky. I would say about 95% of master league terrans that I play leave 3-5 marines around the perimeter of their main to deny any overlord from getting in. (Also, the whole "you deserve to be allined every game" was pretty uncalled for.) I'm taking it for granted that you understand the ling vs. hellion timings off a hatch first opening (if you make 4 lings off a 15h/15p, they get to the terran's ramp about the exact same time that his first 2 hellions finish, so you won't get much scouting from those.
With regards to super economic stuff, I'm talking about the 3-4 cc stuff before terran even makes a second rax or fact. It's super strong against the traditional zerg playstyle of 2 base muta, since you have 100% map control until his spire finishes.
I'm looking for a much more solid way to gain information. I like the hiding of the lings around his natural - there's also some luck involved there, but the cost of one ling (25 minerals) is nowhere near the cost of an early overlord (100 minerals plus supply).
Blade, thank you for posting your roach build, I will give that a run. What I'm currently doing is 15h/15p/17g, with a third hatchery going down around 35-40 food, and 3-4 queens for creep spread before putting guys back into gas. I took a whole bunch of leenock's zvt replays from MLG and tried to reverse-engineer his super safe opener where he goes 3 hatch, 3 queen, with roach warren and bane nest before getting lair and his 3rd/4th gas. Once I can get that critical infrastructure up, I am probably 75% win, but i die quite a lot before there.
On February 08 2012 12:25 Host- wrote: I disagree completely. If you send an overlord into their base at around the 6 min mark, their game plan unfolds before your eyes. If you don't use an overlord to scout around that point or atleast have lings trying to dart up his ramp then you deserve to be all inned every single game for being too stubborn along with having bad scouting.
I think your underestimating how important an overlord scout can be. You can get lucky and actually find a piece of tech such as a starport with a techlab, which 9/10 times will mean banshees with or without cloak. I believe Day9 has said something along the lines of "you have to rule out what they can't be doing" -> something like that, so for example if you see the guy's on only 1 gas and you don't see an expo in his base or in his nat, it's likely a marauder hellion all in, or something to that affect is coming your way.
Also, if they have marines around their perimeter then your ling at their front door is more likely to get some nice scouting info.
I'm not really sure what you mean by the super economic stuff. Once you see an expo you should feel free to drone up a lot and attempt to take a 3rd, if not, you should be making units..
I don't know what terrans you play against, but I wish I got to play these guys who don't leave marines around the perimeter to deny scouting. Yeah, I completely agree that a lucky overlord scout can reveal his whole tech path, but the operative word in that sentence is lucky. I would say about 95% of master league terrans that I play leave 3-5 marines around the perimeter of their main to deny any overlord from getting in. (Also, the whole "you deserve to be allined every game" was pretty uncalled for.) I'm taking it for granted that you understand the ling vs. hellion timings off a hatch first opening (if you make 4 lings off a 15h/15p, they get to the terran's ramp about the exact same time that his first 2 hellions finish, so you won't get much scouting from those.
With regards to super economic stuff, I'm talking about the 3-4 cc stuff before terran even makes a second rax or fact. It's super strong against the traditional zerg playstyle of 2 base muta, since you have 100% map control until his spire finishes.
I'm looking for a much more solid way to gain information. I like the hiding of the lings around his natural - there's also some luck involved there, but the cost of one ling (25 minerals) is nowhere near the cost of an early overlord (100 minerals plus supply).
Blade, thank you for posting your roach build, I will give that a run. What I'm currently doing is 15h/15p/17g, with a third hatchery going down around 35-40 food, and 3-4 queens for creep spread before putting guys back into gas. I took a whole bunch of leenock's zvt replays from MLG and tried to reverse-engineer his super safe opener where he goes 3 hatch, 3 queen, with roach warren and bane nest before getting lair and his 3rd/4th gas. Once I can get that critical infrastructure up, I am probably 75% win, but i die quite a lot before there.
If he has 3-5 marines around his base when you sack your overlord you can rule out several builds such as the marauder hellion all in. I guess the only other way you can really go about getting information is by doing some sort of roach opener, such as blade's one, DRG has a roach opener that can do damage aswell, which you can see in the Dreamhack Valencia replay pack aswell.
Please explain to me like a complete and utter noob - how do I effectively and efficiently stack drones at the start of the game, and how do I work out how many workers to transfer from main to natural and from main/nat to third etc.
On February 09 2012 06:09 Xorphene wrote: Please explain to me like a complete and utter noob - how do I effectively and efficiently stack drones at the start of the game, and how do I work out how many workers to transfer from main to natural and from main/nat to third etc.
Thanks!
Stacking drones at the start of the game is simple. There are about 2-3 mineral patches that are closer to the hatchery and putting two drones on those instead of a farther mineral patch increases economy slightly. What you want to do is after the first drone is mining take a second drone and spam right click that patch as the first one is collecting minerals. Your drone will want to move away to a different patch but if you're spam right clicking the patch it wwill continue to move back to it until the drone that was originally mining the patch carries away the minerals. At that point you will have two drones on the patch.
Many people like to transfer drones as a hatchry finishes but in my opinion it is not worth it. What you want to do is make sure your main mineral line has 16 drones (2 rows) and once that's fully saturated you move both your rally points from your hatcheries to your natural. When you start a 3rd base especially vs a terran which will be a lot later all you would have to do is set your hatcheries rally point to the new mineral line and 2-3 injects worth of larva from each hatchery can almost instantly saturate a new base.
A few things to keep in mind is full saturation is 2 rows on minerals and 3 on each gas. Zerg can make a lot of workers very quickly so transferring shouldnt be too big a deal unless you are oversaturated (more then 2 rows more then 16 drones) so try to focus on that, this way you will not be losing mining time from drones that are already made that have to be transferred.
Is hatch first viable in ZvZ? I scouted him going hatch 1st when my standard opener is 14g/14p ZvZ. He switched to unit-only production after his pool got up and I even after getting a few roaches, I wasn't able to punish him at all and ended up losing. I watched the replay and despite making some choices that I disagreed with (like not transferring any drones), he was able to outproduce me and end up winning. Should I maybe do some hatch first builds in the top gold league/plat?
On February 09 2012 07:24 BossPlaya wrote: Is hatch first viable in ZvZ? I scouted him going hatch 1st when my standard opener is 14g/14p ZvZ. He switched to unit-only production after his pool got up and I even after getting a few roaches, I wasn't able to punish him at all and ended up losing. I watched the replay and despite making some choices that I disagreed with (like not transferring any drones), he was able to outproduce me and end up winning. Should I maybe do some hatch first builds in the top gold league/plat?
I think you just answered your own question right there.
There are actually 2 common openers these days wich are 15 hatch into pool or the 14/14. If you see a 15 hatch and you are 14/14 then there is nothing to QQ about. It's proven that you can have still the same amount of drones running at the time you expand. The only thing you need to do (as in every ZvZ) is scout. Adapt is the key word here. If you see him making zerglings only, then you know trouble is incoming.
Every build is good, the question is more if you like it and if the build suits your playstyile imo
On February 09 2012 07:24 BossPlaya wrote: Is hatch first viable in ZvZ? I scouted him going hatch 1st when my standard opener is 14g/14p ZvZ. He switched to unit-only production after his pool got up and I even after getting a few roaches, I wasn't able to punish him at all and ended up losing. I watched the replay and despite making some choices that I disagreed with (like not transferring any drones), he was able to outproduce me and end up winning. Should I maybe do some hatch first builds in the top gold league/plat?
EPT
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