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.
On March 22 2012 23:37 sjurjh wrote: I'm playing Zerg in top gold on the European server. People keep telling lower league players to practice macro, macro and macro until I am in diamond or even higher. Do they mean practice macro and multitasking as some few others say?
I try to do these simple multitasking task, but it affects my macro in different degrees resulting in hoarding about 2000 minerals while my supply is around 125.
* I scout with the 10th drone. Try to attack the worker building barracks if playing vs. Terran and generally trying to keep my drone alive until i steel gas on some point.
* I place 1 ling at opponents natural to see when he expands, 1 in front of ramp to see when he moves out and 1 on each tower and try to replace them / fight some for towers.
* I try to harass with muta vs toss and terran.
* I send in an overlord and try to click on buildings under construction.
* I try to use infestors in the larger battles vs zerg (I expand at some point and go a roach/infestor build)
My goal is to become as good as I can get whit limited playing time.
Should I drop all this (except the basic scouting) and just focus on getting to 200/200 and then attack?
If so, why does practicing macro lead faster to becoming a better player than practicing macro/multitasking?
Focusing on your macro will allow you to make the greatest gains in the shortest amount of time. He clearly have other areas that need work as well, but focusing on the broader picture will lead to slower improvement than just learning to build 200/200 roach by the 12 minute mark and bust down the Protoss's front door. And yes, doing that right will work against Protoss up through Masters.
Could you link me a replay showing me how to get to 200/200 roach by the 12 min mark?
Search Stephano on Youtube. He does it against pretty much ever Protoss FFE he sees and it's great.
On March 22 2012 19:27 lannisport wrote: Okay so I tried out what I thought was the strategy and totally got smashed multiple times. Then I watched Stephano's stream and realized I didn't understand the strategy at all (i.e. the roach warren). I was getting my roach warren too early and I was droning way too hard and using the roach warren for way too specific of a purpose. Stephano seems to have a rough plan on how to open but he slightly deviates from it. He gets a few lings to defend from the first few helions, gets his roach warren at around 6 minutes+ (they're out by the time 6 helions are) and he starts planting extractors and either gets his third base at 7 or double evos depending on what the terran is doing.
And then he starts to make units at around 9:30 (roaches and lings) depending on what the terran is doing (common theme?), and defends any pushes with them or puts on a bit of pressure. Roach speed and +1 carapace does wonders for depending pushes. And during that he transitions to infestors, expands like crazy. Any one with more experience using this build? Is it popular in EU?
One thing I learned while watching Stephano's stream. He is damn good.... Not only is his control and map awareness flawless, but his drone timing, and gas timing is immaculate too!
How do you guys control all your units on 1 hotkey.... He seems to like doing that.
The timing of a lot of terran pushes is around 9:00 to 10:00 in most games, whereas the timings of a lot of "one single unit" focused attacks generally are around 8:00. For example the fastest a terran can have a banshee with cloak after getting a cc off 1 rax FE is like 8:30, and a bit earlier for hellions, say 7:30 but his cc will be slower. good on your for noticing that commonality of timing.
Don't fall into the 1 hotkey syndrome. If you're just learning from the ground up it's better to learn correctly right from the start, so try to have your roaches/lings/infestors all on separate hotkeys, it helps! Say if you're attacking into an island of sieged terran units, then you split up the roaches and lings manually to alleviate a bit of tank aoe damage, and then you send just the infestors in burrowed to throw some infested terrans while moving roaches forwards, and lastly the lings cause they're the fastest movespeed. A really bad habit is just to 1a everything especially with lings and infestors cause they have such different movespeeds. You want everything to hit roughly at the same time, not "all roaches go in and die, then lings start to attack marines".
On March 23 2012 04:54 Bd.Snake wrote: I have a really noob question but how should you hold a 4 gate when goign gasless zvp??
To be honest, you don't unless the toss sits back on his 4 gate and lets you make 5 spines and 4 queens. Don't go gasless zvp if you scout him opening gateway first.
In ZvT, I'm seeing a lot of mech play recently as stephano's method has been wrecking a lot of terrans (go figure). I see terran's massing vikings, thors, and hellions. Whats the best method to stop this?
On March 23 2012 04:54 Bd.Snake wrote: I have a really noob question but how should you hold a 4 gate when goign gasless zvp??
To be honest, you don't unless the toss sits back on his 4 gate and lets you make 5 spines and 4 queens. Don't go gasless zvp if you scout him opening gateway first.
but i can't scout on tal darim sometimes and just what can i do to hold just mass spines and lings or spines and roach?
On March 23 2012 04:54 Bd.Snake wrote: I have a really noob question but how should you hold a 4 gate when goign gasless zvp??
To be honest, you don't unless the toss sits back on his 4 gate and lets you make 5 spines and 4 queens. Don't go gasless zvp if you scout him opening gateway first.
but i can't scout on tal darim sometimes and just what can i do to hold just mass spines and lings or spines and roach?
theres no reason why you shouldn't be able to scout. a p has 2 main openings, FFE (with delayed nexus/early nexus) or gateway opener. try opening up 14 pool/16 hatch with a drone scout at 13 food count. you'll be able to get a scout every time unless they hack.
Don't fall into the 1 hotkey syndrome. If you're just learning from the ground up it's better to learn correctly right from the start, so try to have your roaches/lings/infestors all on separate hotkeys, it helps! Say if you're attacking into an island of sieged terran units, then you split up the roaches and lings manually to alleviate a bit of tank aoe damage, and then you send just the infestors in burrowed to throw some infested terrans while moving roaches forwards, and lastly the lings cause they're the fastest movespeed. A really bad habit is just to 1a everything especially with lings and infestors cause they have such different movespeeds. You want everything to hit roughly at the same time, not "all roaches go in and die, then lings start to attack marines".
Oh no I don't use 1 hotkey I'm just curious how many progamers get away with it. IIRC even Jaedong uses just 1 or 2 hotkeys to control all his units. Do people use tab or just click manually the units the want to control or what?
I am having trouble with Stephano's ling infestor build. Generally my macro slips hard (When I go muta bling, it's easy to keep my mins below 400 even on 80+ drones) and I hover over 1k mins and gas, especially when I have to deal with multiprong drops plus a push in the middle. Also my drone timing seems to be off (I'm always behind in workers even though it feels like I've had some breathing room to drone). What are the general worker goals of this build or a ling infestor build in general? 50 drones be safe then 70+ or what? Are there any prominent ling infestor players that anyone can recommend me besides stephano?
Don't fall into the 1 hotkey syndrome. If you're just learning from the ground up it's better to learn correctly right from the start, so try to have your roaches/lings/infestors all on separate hotkeys, it helps! Say if you're attacking into an island of sieged terran units, then you split up the roaches and lings manually to alleviate a bit of tank aoe damage, and then you send just the infestors in burrowed to throw some infested terrans while moving roaches forwards, and lastly the lings cause they're the fastest movespeed. A really bad habit is just to 1a everything especially with lings and infestors cause they have such different movespeeds. You want everything to hit roughly at the same time, not "all roaches go in and die, then lings start to attack marines".
Oh no I don't use 1 hotkey I'm just curious how many progamers get away with it. IIRC even Jaedong uses just 1 or 2 hotkeys to control all his units. Do people use tab or just click manually the units the want to control or what?
I am having trouble with Stephano's ling infestor build. Generally my macro slips hard (When I go muta bling, it's easy to keep my mins below 400 even on 80+ drones) and I hover over 1k mins and gas, especially when I have to deal with multiprong drops plus a push in the middle. Also my drone timing seems to be off (I'm always behind in workers even though it feels like I've had some breathing room to drone). What are the general worker goals of this build or a ling infestor build in general? 50 drones be safe then 70+ or what? Are there any prominent ling infestor players that anyone can recommend me besides stephano?
You could check out jEchos vods from his stream at www.twitch.tv/jechotv - he commentates all his games, and goes ling/infestor Stephano-style in ZvT. Since he explains everything he does I'm sure there could be some helpful tips there.
On March 23 2012 04:54 Bd.Snake wrote: I have a really noob question but how should you hold a 4 gate when goign gasless zvp??
To be honest, you don't unless the toss sits back on his 4 gate and lets you make 5 spines and 4 queens. Don't go gasless zvp if you scout him opening gateway first.
but i can't scout on tal darim sometimes and just what can i do to hold just mass spines and lings or spines and roach?
Well you said you're going gasless, so you want an asston of queens and spines with lings. I think a good 4 gate would be impossible to hold with gasless so I tend to scout on 12 and throw down a gas as soon as the pool finishes if you see him going gateway first.
On March 23 2012 07:06 KevJeong wrote: In ZvT, I'm seeing a lot of mech play recently as stephano's method has been wrecking a lot of terrans (go figure). I see terran's massing vikings, thors, and hellions. Whats the best method to stop this?
I actually played versus this very strat earlier today with the addition of roughly a million tanks. I just defended the initial large bfh push with roaches, then expo'd to 4 base to his slow 3, then got a 5th for gas. Then I suicided my roaches, he came out to fight and I overran him with T3 ultra + bl + infestors. But I'm plat so, idk how this works anywhere else.
On March 22 2012 23:37 sjurjh wrote: I'm playing Zerg in top gold on the European server. People keep telling lower league players to practice macro, macro and macro until I am in diamond or even higher. Do they mean practice macro and multitasking as some few others say?
I try to do these simple multitasking task, but it affects my macro in different degrees resulting in hoarding about 2000 minerals while my supply is around 125.
* I scout with the 10th drone. Try to attack the worker building barracks if playing vs. Terran and generally trying to keep my drone alive until i steel gas on some point.
* I place 1 ling at opponents natural to see when he expands, 1 in front of ramp to see when he moves out and 1 on each tower and try to replace them / fight some for towers.
* I try to harass with muta vs toss and terran.
* I send in an overlord and try to click on buildings under construction.
* I try to use infestors in the larger battles vs zerg (I expand at some point and go a roach/infestor build)
My goal is to become as good as I can get whit limited playing time.
Should I drop all this (except the basic scouting) and just focus on getting to 200/200 and then attack?
If so, why does practicing macro lead faster to becoming a better player than practicing macro/multitasking?
Focusing on your macro will allow you to make the greatest gains in the shortest amount of time. He clearly have other areas that need work as well, but focusing on the broader picture will lead to slower improvement than just learning to build 200/200 roach by the 12 minute mark and bust down the Protoss's front door. And yes, doing that right will work against Protoss up through Masters.
Could you link me a replay showing me how to get to 200/200 roach by the 12 min mark?
Search Stephano on Youtube. He does it against pretty much ever Protoss FFE he sees and it's great.
I searched youtube and some replays i had. I found a replay where DongRaeGu got to 177/200 when by doing 15 pool, 16 hatch, 25 hatch with mass Roach and only a few Zerglings. If any one else would like to mimic or watch his build you can find it here. It is DongRaeGu vs Huk Game 1 found in losers bracket round 8.
Im having an insanely hard time beating a protoss friend of mine, who plays greedy, and transitions into double robo colo. Im having a hard time punishing his greediness, and then I get owned by a lot of colo.
On March 23 2012 22:56 gronnelg wrote: Dia zerg here.
Im having an insanely hard time beating a protoss friend of mine, who plays greedy, and transitions into double robo colo. Im having a hard time punishing his greediness, and then I get owned by a lot of colo.
How do you guys deal with lots of colo?
The more collossi he has, the slower in general his army will be, and the fewer stalkers/sentries/zealots he will have. Personally I'd go for mass mutas and harrass his pylons, robo bays, snipe any free collossi you can, kill probes, etc. Protoss Ground armies are also fairly weak against Spine Crawlers, and at the very least they will slow the deathball down and let you try to mass an army that can kill his.
Keep on top of your upgrades, expand aggressively, and shoot for a pure Ling/Muta composition. Only engage his army with your mutas when his Stalkers are almost all dead, if at all.
If you want to punish his greed, you can do some early Roach/Ling or slightly later Roach/Hydra pressure on his Natural (Or third if it's down), but that will depend largely on his opener.
Personally I'd just go for a base trade the moment he moves out and do enough damage that you force a true all-in. Throw down an assload of spines, expand all over the place, and generally make it difficult for him to kill you off. The moment you see him move out, flood lings into his main and kill everything.
On March 23 2012 22:56 gronnelg wrote: Dia zerg here.
Im having an insanely hard time beating a protoss friend of mine, who plays greedy, and transitions into double robo colo. Im having a hard time punishing his greediness, and then I get owned by a lot of colo.
How do you guys deal with lots of colo?
The more collossi he has, the slower in general his army will be, and the fewer stalkers/sentries/zealots he will have. Personally I'd go for mass mutas and harrass his pylons, robo bays, snipe any free collossi you can, kill probes, etc. Protoss Ground armies are also fairly weak against Spine Crawlers, and at the very least they will slow the deathball down and let you try to mass an army that can kill his.
Keep on top of your upgrades, expand aggressively, and shoot for a pure Ling/Muta composition. Only engage his army with your mutas when his Stalkers are almost all dead, if at all.
If you want to punish his greed, you can do some early Roach/Ling or slightly later Roach/Hydra pressure on his Natural (Or third if it's down), but that will depend largely on his opener.
Personally I'd just go for a base trade the moment he moves out and do enough damage that you force a true all-in. Throw down an assload of spines, expand all over the place, and generally make it difficult for him to kill you off. The moment you see him move out, flood lings into his main and kill everything.
There's a build I've been working on specifically on Tal'Darim (I'm mid-high masters) that works wonders against Robo builds -
Double Spire/Doube Evo Chamber Ling Muta off of two bases to start - into a midgame of Muta/Ling with Nydus support.
The mutalisks give you vision into the base and you can start to build nyduses all over his bases for quick harass and reinforcement - essentially never lets the protoss leave the base without just being killed.
On March 23 2012 22:56 gronnelg wrote: Dia zerg here.
Im having an insanely hard time beating a protoss friend of mine, who plays greedy, and transitions into double robo colo. Im having a hard time punishing his greediness, and then I get owned by a lot of colo.
How do you guys deal with lots of colo?
The more collossi he has, the slower in general his army will be, and the fewer stalkers/sentries/zealots he will have. Personally I'd go for mass mutas and harrass his pylons, robo bays, snipe any free collossi you can, kill probes, etc. Protoss Ground armies are also fairly weak against Spine Crawlers, and at the very least they will slow the deathball down and let you try to mass an army that can kill his.
Keep on top of your upgrades, expand aggressively, and shoot for a pure Ling/Muta composition. Only engage his army with your mutas when his Stalkers are almost all dead, if at all.
If you want to punish his greed, you can do some early Roach/Ling or slightly later Roach/Hydra pressure on his Natural (Or third if it's down), but that will depend largely on his opener.
Personally I'd just go for a base trade the moment he moves out and do enough damage that you force a true all-in. Throw down an assload of spines, expand all over the place, and generally make it difficult for him to kill you off. The moment you see him move out, flood lings into his main and kill everything.
There's a build I've been working on specifically on Tal'Darim (I'm mid-high masters) that works wonders against Robo builds -
Double Spire/Doube Evo Chamber Ling Muta off of two bases to start - into a midgame of Muta/Ling with Nydus support.
The mutalisks give you vision into the base and you can start to build nyduses all over his bases for quick harass and reinforcement - essentially never lets the protoss leave the base without just being killed.
Double Evo, double Spire AND Nydus? Stephano's double Spire build that he uses on Tal'Darim (See SXSW Showmatch with White-Ra) leaves you so gas-starved, I have no idea how you possibly can factor in Nydus worms (Which cost HELLA gas, 100 gas everytime you wanna throw one up? That's one less Muta..) AND double upgrades! You stay on two base for too long for that to seem viable, the point of the two-base double Spire build is you can get a flock of 2/2 Muta's that'll smash through armies without Storm or a ton of Archons. With all these extras, your Muta flock won't grow nearly fast enough in my opinion.
Obviously as you take more bases and your gas count increases you can add on ground upgrades, but I don't see how this build could work off of two bases. I can imagine a Toss just putting down a bunch of cannons and pushing with AoE because you're too gas-starved to make enough units.
On March 24 2012 01:41 tehcaekftw wrote: How many gas should i be on for infestor/BL against protoss, and how should i properly transition into it?
And what is an ideal lategame plan vs. Terran mech or bio?
ZvP BL: 8-10 is optimal. 6 is pushing it, but if you need to, you can try to do it on 3 bases (Empire_viOlet does it iirc) Best transition I have seen: spine, drone, infestor, with double spire. Once hive is done, keep upgrade with one spire and morph greater spire with the other. Check out this day 9 daily for more details
ZvT late game: vs Mech, the only option is BL/corruptor, you want more corruptors than BLs. vs Bio, depending on the tank count and map, BL/infestor/corruptor if tank count is high or map is good for sieging, if marine count is high, get ultra, and go infestor ultra ling bling, or map has flanks for counter attacks and if you need mobility. Either way should work but you want a tech switch depending on the marauder count/viking count.
On March 23 2012 22:56 gronnelg wrote: Dia zerg here.
Im having an insanely hard time beating a protoss friend of mine, who plays greedy, and transitions into double robo colo. Im having a hard time punishing his greediness, and then I get owned by a lot of colo.
How do you guys deal with lots of colo?
The more collossi he has, the slower in general his army will be, and the fewer stalkers/sentries/zealots he will have. Personally I'd go for mass mutas and harrass his pylons, robo bays, snipe any free collossi you can, kill probes, etc. Protoss Ground armies are also fairly weak against Spine Crawlers, and at the very least they will slow the deathball down and let you try to mass an army that can kill his.
Keep on top of your upgrades, expand aggressively, and shoot for a pure Ling/Muta composition. Only engage his army with your mutas when his Stalkers are almost all dead, if at all.
If you want to punish his greed, you can do some early Roach/Ling or slightly later Roach/Hydra pressure on his Natural (Or third if it's down), but that will depend largely on his opener.
Personally I'd just go for a base trade the moment he moves out and do enough damage that you force a true all-in. Throw down an assload of spines, expand all over the place, and generally make it difficult for him to kill you off. The moment you see him move out, flood lings into his main and kill everything.
There's a build I've been working on specifically on Tal'Darim (I'm mid-high masters) that works wonders against Robo builds -
Double Spire/Doube Evo Chamber Ling Muta off of two bases to start - into a midgame of Muta/Ling with Nydus support.
The mutalisks give you vision into the base and you can start to build nyduses all over his bases for quick harass and reinforcement - essentially never lets the protoss leave the base without just being killed.
Double Evo, double Spire AND Nydus? Stephano's double Spire build that he uses on Tal'Darim (See SXSW Showmatch with White-Ra) leaves you so gas-starved, I have no idea how you possibly can factor in Nydus worms (Which cost HELLA gas, 100 gas everytime you wanna throw one up? That's one less Muta..) AND double upgrades! You stay on two base for too long for that to seem viable, the point of the two-base double Spire build is you can get a flock of 2/2 Muta's that'll smash through armies without Storm or a ton of Archons. With all these extras, your Muta flock won't grow nearly fast enough in my opinion.
Obviously as you take more bases and your gas count increases you can add on ground upgrades, but I don't see how this build could work off of two bases. I can imagine a Toss just putting down a bunch of cannons and pushing with AoE because you're too gas-starved to make enough units.
Yeah, I was writing quickly and miswrote - the nydus never comes in my build until after I'm on three bases with 1/1 lings and 1/1 mutas on the field. It is gas heavy, but I don' t make any roaches with this build, so there's a bit more available.
Hi! I'm a low master Zerg player that struggles with properly defending warp prism harassment.
When I see Protoss moving out, and also warping in 4-5 zealots in my main, (mind you this is later-mid game, I'm on 3-4 bases)
I feel trapped, If I split off a part of my army to deal with the drop, his main army will be that much harder to deal with, and also I'm not really dealing with the warp prism running around that can just do it again to keep my locked up in my base(s).
1-2 spines at each base in the late game with good overlord spread to send units accordingly. Other than that I don't know how to properly defend warp prism harassment. I feel trapped and without a solution, just like ZvT I feel like getting mutas is the only way to absolutely shut it down.
EPT
