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Do you have any advice or tips on baneling micro?
I understand that I need to use lings to block the retreat and prevent kiting, especially before centifugal hooks.
The tricky part is getting around the marauders and getting to the marines.
I'm really looking for specifics. Should I right click the marines or the ground near the marines? Should I manually explode them?
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I have a lot of trouble multitasking; microing an army in a battle at the same time as building more units. I feel like zerg are very fragile, and if i look away from a battle for even a moment against a terran or protoss death ball when i look back everything's gone without a mark on the opposing forces, wheras if I do micro my forces, I might come out ahead but my macro suffers to the point where I can't meet the next army incoming with enough forces. I feel like zerg have the most to worry about position wise and macro wise (spawn larvae) which is why I am having this dilemma.
Question: Do you have any tips for multitasking? (Short question with long synopsis : P)
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Just pure awesome.
My question: I find Infestors awesome, specially in ZvZ and ZvT (including against mech), and want to incorporate a build which opens with them at Lair tech, as an alternative to the usual Spire stuff, as I find them key to dealing with Terran harass and drops.
I've seem the CatZ game in the IEM (I believe) where he attempts this, but is unsuccesful. I've never seen another player attempt this, however (except maybe Cool, when forced to one based against a Reaper opening), so I was wondering the general opinion about it's viability.
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Hey, I thought I would help out a bit in this thread.
Introducing myself, my nick is Alsn and I'm a 1350 diamond zerg that plays a bunch of tourneys every week and occasionally beat known players(although usually I mess up and lose to no-names in really stupid ways haha). Ended up #163 on Blizzards last "top 200" post for Europe.
On September 21 2010 15:26 csfield wrote: Do you have any advice or tips on baneling micro?
I understand that I need to use lings to block the retreat and prevent kiting, especially before centifugal hooks.
The tricky part is getting around the marauders and getting to the marines.
I'm really looking for specifics. Should I right click the marines or the ground near the marines? Should I manually explode them? Just don't try to surround from the front with your lings. I employ a mix of creep spread(tumours give vision too! abuse it!), xel'naga humping and overlord placement to keep track of where the terran army is. Speedlings are faaaast. Just move them around to the rear of the terran army(even if this means having to travel halfway around the map, you usually have time for it) and that way they are blocking the retreat from the blings from the very getgo.
My hotkeys for my army is usually 1: lings and muta, 2 banelings(and eventually ultras), 3 only muta(for individual microing, harassment and so that I can always easily magic box vs thors). This allows me to use the very fast muta/ling combination to run around to the rear, while keeping my slower units(banes, ultras) on a separate hotkey for that awesome flanking action.
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Oops, accidently quoted instead of edited.
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On September 21 2010 15:38 phfantunes wrote: Just pure awesome.
My question: I find Infestors awesome, specially in ZvZ and ZvT (including against mech), and want to incorporate a build which opens with them at Lair tech, as an alternative to the usual Spire stuff, as I find them key to dealing with Terran harass and drops.
I've seem the CatZ game in the IEM (I believe) where he attempts this, but is unsuccesful. I've never seen another player attempt this, however (except maybe Cool, when forced to one based against a Reaper opening), so I was wondering the general opinion about it's viability.
I feel like going infestors before muta is almost standard in some ZvT games. Against a Terran player who's going bio, for example, with a heavy emphasis on marines, going muta straight away is going to be very dangerous. Your harass is going to be susceptible to taking heavy damage from the marines, and if he decides to just attack, the mutas won't offer much in the way of defense.
Going infestor/baneling against that type of army, though, means T won't be kiting your banes, and his whole army is going to go up in smoke (er, acid?) as soon as it pushes out onto the map.
In other words: I go infestor before muta almost every game vs T who goes heavy bio.
I will still transition to muta later - he's going to have to transition out of a marine heavy army, otherwise he's just going to die to banes. That's when the muta becomes especially effective, as a T who's only seen infestor/banes is going to have zero in the way of turrets back home.
On September 21 2010 15:29 Confuse wrote: I have a lot of trouble multitasking; microing an army in a battle at the same time as building more units. I feel like zerg are very fragile, and if i look away from a battle for even a moment against a terran or protoss death ball when i look back everything's gone without a mark on the opposing forces, wheras if I do micro my forces, I might come out ahead but my macro suffers to the point where I can't meet the next army incoming with enough forces. I feel like zerg have the most to worry about position wise and macro wise (spawn larvae) which is why I am having this dilemma.
Question: Do you have any tips for multitasking? (Short question with long synopsis : P)
Practice. Lots.
; )
Sadly, that's the only answer there is...
On September 21 2010 15:19 Meff wrote: What tactic would you employ against a FEing protoss? (if the specific flavour of the FE matters, think of it as forge FE on Lost Temple)
I've had some success with skipping 'ling speed and delaying my own expo so as to be able to put pressure with a hydra-heavy roach-hydra composition, but it only happened a couple of times and I can't quite decide whether the build is solid or I just won thanks to mistakes from my opponents.
FE toss suffers from being spread out, and low tech. I like to get mutas while adding a third base. You'll have map control forever in this case. Be sure to keep upgrades going on your mutas. Spend the rest of your gas on muta (we're talking 20-30+), and pump lings with excess minerals. Toss is going to have a very difficult time defending both bases, and when he pushes out, muta ling should demolish his stalker heavy army.
This gets a little trickier at higher levels, but it stays brutally effective even for progamers. There's been some GSL matches demonstrating this.
On September 21 2010 15:26 csfield wrote: Do you have any advice or tips on baneling micro?
I understand that I need to use lings to block the retreat and prevent kiting, especially before centifugal hooks.
The tricky part is getting around the marauders and getting to the marines.
I'm really looking for specifics. Should I right click the marines or the ground near the marines? Should I manually explode them?
Never attack move your banes. Only use right click/ "m" move. If you can help it, don't attack with lings from the same side that you're attacking with banes. Ideally you'll attack from behind with lings, while attacking from the front with banes. (or vice versa)
In less ideal situations, you'll want to run past the Terran ball with lings, and then a-move, while moving in from the front with banes.
Manual detonations are sweet, just be careful not to blow up 30 banes for 15 Terran infantry. Banes are damn expensive, and they stop being cost effective when you throw away excess units by manually detonating them.
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My zerg macro is terrible. When do you find it appropriate, if at all, to make your 3rd hatch not at an expansion? Map dependent? match up dependent? Strategy dependent?
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On September 21 2010 15:53 zomgtossrush wrote: My zerg macro is terrible. When do you find it appropriate, if at all, to make your 3rd hatch not at an expansion? Map dependent? match up dependent? Strategy dependent?
You're on my ladder. ; )
Koreans get a 3rd hatch in their main, often before lair. This is happening time and time again in the GSL.
I've been copying them lately, and have been having a much easier time of keeping my queen energy, as well as my money, very, very low.
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On September 21 2010 15:57 MrBitter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 15:53 zomgtossrush wrote: My zerg macro is terrible. When do you find it appropriate, if at all, to make your 3rd hatch not at an expansion? Map dependent? match up dependent? Strategy dependent? You're on my ladder. ; ) Koreans get a 3rd hatch in their main, often before lair. This is happening time and time again in the GSL. I've been copying them lately, and have been having a much easier time of keeping my queen energy, as well as my money, very, very low.
Ah thanks for the imput. Can you think of a specific game/player so I can check it out? You may have noticed me plumit from like rank 15ish to rank 30ish. Damn you blizzard. I think they are forcing me to zvt until the patch. lol.
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On September 21 2010 15:59 zomgtossrush wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 15:57 MrBitter wrote:On September 21 2010 15:53 zomgtossrush wrote: My zerg macro is terrible. When do you find it appropriate, if at all, to make your 3rd hatch not at an expansion? Map dependent? match up dependent? Strategy dependent? You're on my ladder. ; ) Koreans get a 3rd hatch in their main, often before lair. This is happening time and time again in the GSL. I've been copying them lately, and have been having a much easier time of keeping my queen energy, as well as my money, very, very low. Ah thanks for the imput. Can you think of a specific game/player so I can check it out? You may have noticed me plumit from like rank 15ish to rank 30ish. Damn you blizzard. I think they are forcing me to zvt until the patch. lol.
http://www.gomtv.net/videos/1106/21
ZvT - about 11 minutes into game one.
Artosis makes a little speech about it... Watch the whole thing though. Tastosis calls it all-in, but you'll see that its very clearly not.
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On September 21 2010 16:05 MrBitter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 15:59 zomgtossrush wrote:On September 21 2010 15:57 MrBitter wrote:On September 21 2010 15:53 zomgtossrush wrote: My zerg macro is terrible. When do you find it appropriate, if at all, to make your 3rd hatch not at an expansion? Map dependent? match up dependent? Strategy dependent? You're on my ladder. ; ) Koreans get a 3rd hatch in their main, often before lair. This is happening time and time again in the GSL. I've been copying them lately, and have been having a much easier time of keeping my queen energy, as well as my money, very, very low. Ah thanks for the imput. Can you think of a specific game/player so I can check it out? You may have noticed me plumit from like rank 15ish to rank 30ish. Damn you blizzard. I think they are forcing me to zvt until the patch. lol. http://www.gomtv.net/videos/1106/21ZvT - about 11 minutes into game one. Artosis makes a little speech about it... Watch the whole thing though. Tastosis calls it all-in, but you'll see that its very clearly not.
Here is something we don't see too often on tl.
Thank you for your help. 
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How the hell do you deal with a Tank or Thor drop on Lost Temple?
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On September 21 2010 12:21 Saracen wrote: This is what I do against 4gate: 14 pool 15 hatch ... Just a simple question in between: How do you play 14pool 15 hatch "against 4gate"?
Do you always 15 hatch against P or how do select your build by scouting?
800 Dia Z here and I would LOVE a short guide like you did for ZvT for ZvP. Currently P is causing even more trouble to me than T. =/
Anyway, <3 this thread.
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Hi i am a 700+ zerg diamond player and I need help, specially choosing the exacts moments to switch between making army or drones. In all matchups, specially vs Toss. So please, can you give me some tips? Thanks
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TY so much saracen!
one more strat i found particularly annoying although it's not too common in my matches is double starport reactor vikings. I usually scout the one port and think it's 1/1/1.
I'll continue as normal but when my muta harass comes along i get chased away by viking numbers. My ground army is roach/ling/bling so i don't want to start bleeding overlords to mass viking. I then get into an air control war muta vs. viking. I can keep the superior numbers and keep him in his base, but because of the gas cost i can't really make any more ground units other than lings.
So when the big battle comes, i'm sitting on a ton of muta/ling with good upgrades. However, he comes in with thor/blue hellion/ vikings. Both my core units get stomped in this case because of the composition.
Question is, "is it worth it to fight the T for air dominance for sake of losing overlords/getting harassed by viking mobility?"
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On September 21 2010 19:42 ArKLaWL wrote: Hi i am a 700+ zerg diamond player and I need help, specially choosing the exacts moments to switch between making army or drones. In all matchups, specially vs Toss. So please, can you give me some tips? Thanks Some things to note vs toss: Early game, either overlord scout or 10ish drone scout. Is he making only the one zeal for blocking his ramp(check if his gateway does not have a glowy white thing in the middle before the cyb core is finished). If so, make drones. If not, make units to deal with whatever amount of zealots he sends(estimate about 4 lings per zealot, or about one roach per zealot). Take note however that you don't actually need the units until he arrives, so it's perfectly fine to drone up until you see him moving out.
The exception to the last comment is that whenever he gets too many units, you need to continuously re-evaluate if you need a "bare minimum" amount of units made beforehand. Example: If P has built up a force of 6 zealots and you only have a hatchery + queen there's just no way that you'll be able to build enough zerglings just from the larva you get while he moves towards your base. Which means that at some point(at around 3 zealots or so) you would have to build some kind of defence even if he doesn't actually move out(usually, this means making a few roaches, or planting spine crawlers if you don't have a roach warren).
The basic idea however is that you need to keep scouting him to see what he is up to.
As for the mid-late game, there are a few rules that I tend to use. Is he attacking right now? If so, build an army.
Am I putting pressure on him(such as muta harassing or having a unit he can't currently counter, like hydras before he's got HT/Colossi)? If no, does he have a bigger army than me? If yes, build an army.
Do I know what he is up to? If no, try to find out and if I can't find anything out in a timely manner, assume the worst and prepare some kind of defence/response.
In all other situations, make drones(or, once you have a game-winning lead, go kill him). These situations include demolishing an attack without any effort, seeing him doing something extremely defensive like cannoning up, expanding or otherwise teching/developing his economy without you being able to punish it by killing him then and there.
To identify all these situations you quite simply just have to play a lot and learn to see them as there will undoubtedly be situations where you will not be 100% sure of what to do and have to rely on "game sense" to figure out what to do.
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How do I properly punish an early zerg 15 hatch > 15 pool build in zvz, assuming you went a more standard 14 pool?
1. Hit him early with a few zerglings. 2. Hit him a bit later with speedlings/banelings. 3. Fast tech to muta. 4. ?
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On September 21 2010 12:21 Saracen wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 11:56 raybasto wrote: Against Toss, what is the best way to fend off 4 gate pressure and survive till the late game. It seems like if I open Hydras/Ling/Spines, they fast expand and switch to 2 gate Robo in which I am unable to defend long enough to get Ultra/Ling (Whether its because of lack of harass or over commiting to Hydra/Roach). If I open Muta/Ling, they keep the 4 gate pressure until my defenses finally break. This is what I do against 4gate: 14 pool 15 hatch 15 queen/overlord - when that queen finishes, build another queen, take your gas, and spit larva at the main then movie it to your nat (you might want to take your gas slightly earlier) - drone to 32 supply, then MASS lings - build nothing but lings/overlords - take a drone off of gas whenever you have the 100 gas for speed - I have been able to beat 4gate with exclusively lings, but you might want to add roaches or banelings if you're feeling uncomfortable, like maybe he's going heavy zeal/sentry or something - try to engage him as soon as speed finishes because you don't want his gateway ball to grow too large, and you don't want him to have too many force fields
I find this build a bit problematic. first off, you rarely can place the hatch at 15 as your opponent will have scouted you in time and will be blocking the hatchery spot most of the time with his probe. next, you say you take your second gas as you build your second queen (or slighty earlier), again i find this to be problematic for two reasons: a) non speed lings are very bad at killing off/intercepting probes - this can mean that you see a probe coming out of his base, running towards you, placing down two pylons and then you dying to a 1 gas 4 warpgate allin because you werent able to kill off the probe before it placed the pylons (and you usually dont have more than 2 or 4 lings at that moment, of which not all will be there immidiately to kill the pylons) b) if your opponent chronoboosts his first stalker and immidiately starts harrasing it can result in you having to build way more lings than you want at that stage to prevent any bigger damage from happening. also, without speed you will not be able to kill his stalker. i like the dronestop at 32 (i personally do 32-34 depending a bit on map and whether i saw him chronoboosting his core), but i wouldnt get exclusivly lings against a 4 gate as they do very very bad against zealot/sentry, and once you see he is going zealot/sentry its already too late to start a roach warren. mass ling is also very weak against a rather eco heavy late +1 attack push which you will not be able to scout if the protoss places his forge far from the edges of his base.
i personally go 14 pool 14 gas and then expand around 21 and take drones off gas once i have 100 and get ling speed. the first queen injects once in the main then places a tumor and moves to the natural. the second queen is build at 21/22 supply after placing down the hatchery at the natural. then i pump drones until 30-34 supply (if i scout no second gas with my initial scouting drone and see alot of chronos on the core i stop at 30). at 30 supply i put 3 drones back into gas and build a roachwarren (this is usually shortly after the first inject at the main pops the 4 larvae).
this build is a little worse in economy than yours, but it is much saver and has alot less trouble against the mentioned 1 stalker harras or any kind of weird early attack with like 1 zealot 1 stalker. furthermore, with faster zerglings you have an easier time scouting all possible proxy pylon locations.
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On September 21 2010 20:38 Xizorz wrote: How do I properly punish an early zerg 15 hatch > 15 pool build in zvz, assuming you went a more standard 14 pool?
1. Hit him early with a few zerglings. 2. Hit him a bit later with speedlings/banelings. 3. Fast tech to muta. 4. ? first off, i would go 15 hatch 14 pool in this situation (in the position of your opponent).
On maps where the blocking off of the ramp with 2 queens is possible a bust with speedling/baneling pretty much does not work (unless the opponent makes a mistake). for this reason the 14 gas 14 pool build is a little risky on maps where the 15 hatch build is possible, as this build is pretty much automatically behind in that situation. on the other hand, the 15 hatch build of course loses to any kind of 6-9 (maybe 10?) pool (if you place the hatch before scouting your opponents main).
going mutas is probably the best thing you can do, but as the 15 hatch player will have a stronger economy he can build a few queens to defend against the mutalisks, and then either go mutas himself or go for roach hydra and 1-2 infestors and do a timingattack before you are able to get a third up and running and catch up in roach/hydra count or tech to broodlords. another possibility would be to go banelings, but i feel this is very risky against infestors as fungal growth is very good against them. in the deciding battle it will come down to positioning/micro and whether the roach hydra infestor player can get off good fungals, but i feel the roach/hydra/infestor force is favorable in this situation.
the player who is fast expanding might need a good bunch of experience to get a good feeling for when to push, but my intuition tells me that this is the superior strategy.
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On September 21 2010 15:48 MrBitter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2010 15:19 Meff wrote: What tactic would you employ against a FEing protoss? (if the specific flavour of the FE matters, think of it as forge FE on Lost Temple)
I've had some success with skipping 'ling speed and delaying my own expo so as to be able to put pressure with a hydra-heavy roach-hydra composition, but it only happened a couple of times and I can't quite decide whether the build is solid or I just won thanks to mistakes from my opponents. FE toss suffers from being spread out, and low tech. I like to get mutas while adding a third base. You'll have map control forever in this case. Be sure to keep upgrades going on your mutas. Spend the rest of your gas on muta (we're talking 20-30+), and pump lings with excess minerals. Toss is going to have a very difficult time defending both bases, and when he pushes out, muta ling should demolish his stalker heavy army. This gets a little trickier at higher levels, but it stays brutally effective even for progamers. There's been some GSL matches demonstrating this. As a toss this is certainly correct. When we FE we have two worries 1) they'll just expo even more because we can't do a damn thing about it and 2) mutas hopping between the main and the expo are enough to make any toss want to shoot himself. They also prevent us leaving our base until templar at least, so there's map control 100% gone.
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